GEORGE TOWN, March 8 — One of the people’s housing project (PPR) tenants evicted from Taman Manggis fumbled when asked to clarify accusations that she led a “luxurious lifestyle” and had flown overseas on business class.
Khalidah Nazir Ahmad first admitted that she travelled overseas on business class flights with her husband “a long time ago”.
She claimed she was upgraded to business class and also because her brother, who owned a retail shop, transferred his mileage points to her.
Screenshots of her Facebook account including one of her postings of business class tickets in her name to Colombo, Sri Lanka went viral online earlier today.
The Malaysian Airlines ticket, dated May 18, 2014, also listed her as a frequent flyer.
When approached again a couple hours later by reporters, the 63-year-old changed her story to deny everything that was posted about her on social media.
“These are all fabricated and lies spread by those online warriors, whatever you called them,” she said.
She added that whatever was spread was her “personal business” and nothing to do with anyone else or the issue at hand.
“They are spreading lies about me. In Islam, if they don’t apologise to me, they will have to answer to Allah when they die,” she said.
Khalidah then stressed that the issue of her income does not apply in her case.
She claimed that the unit she was living in was “compensation” when she was relocated 13 years ago due to redevelopment.
“I didn’t apply for a PPR unit in Taman Manggis, I got it as compensation,” she claimed.
She said her house in Sungai Pinang was demolished so she was given the PPR unit as compensation.
“When they offered me the unit, they did not ask if I’m poor or not,” she said.
She said she was working as a freelance tour guide in a tour agency previously but claimed she is now unemployed.
She spoke to reporters when approached in Komtar but later clammed up when other tenants there told her to stop talking to the media.
Khalidah is one of the eight Taman Manggis tenants who were evicted and had staged a sit-in on the ground floor of Komtar since Wednesday.
The state housing committee evicted 22 tenants from the PPR flats on Wednesday and seven had vacated the premises.
The remaining seven are in the process of appealing against the eviction.
Today, the state government finally relented and allowed them to go back to their units to collect their personal items.
However, they were only allowed three days to pack and move out.
The group has refused to go back and insisted that they will not accept any other deals except to go back to live in the PPR units permanently.
They even engaged a lawyer to fight for their cause.
Mohd Khairul Azam Abdul Aziz, who is representing them, said the eviction was illegal and conducted without a court order.
“The eviction was against Section 7 (2) of the Specific Relief Act 1950 and Article 13 of the Federal Constitution,” he said.
He added that he had served a notice on this to the State Secretary Datuk Seri Farizan Darus today.
He claimed the state government had trespassed without proper court order and that what they did was against the rule of law.
He said the evicted tenants had a right to file a suit against the state government over this eviction.
