Ex-estate residents threaten to camp at PM’s office

G Vinod | May 23, 2012
If the PM does not meet former Bukit Jalil estate residents on May 30, they will camp in front of his office till a solution is reached.
PETALING JAYA: The Bukit Jalil estate residents want Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to meet them on May 30 and offer a solution to their dispute with the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL).
“If Najib refuses to meet us on that day, we will camp at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) until he comes to see us,” said the estate action committee treasurer K Balakrishnan.
The group earlier delivered a memorandum on their demand to Najib’s special officer Azhar Shahrul.
The 41 families living in the former estate area are currently embroiled in a tussle with the DBKL as the latter wants to evict them from the land to set up a Muslim cemetery there.
The former estate workers demanded the City Hall grant them four acres of land out of the 26-acre land to build low cost houses.
The residents duly took the matter to the High Court and the Court of Appeal but lost their case.
Najib had advised the Federal Territories and Urban Well-Being Ministry to find an amicable solution to the stand-off but to date nothing concrete had emerged.
Balakrishnan said that the residents had no choice but to resort to such drastic measures as their letters and memos to the prime minister since last year went unreplied.
“If the government can intervene in the Kampung Buah Pala issue, why not solve this issue as well?” he asked.
In 2008, Kampung Buah Pala in Penang was demolished to make way for a posh condominium project, the Oasis.
While 24 families residing in the village received double storey houses from the state government as compensation, nine families refused to accept the offer out of dissatisfaction.
Subsequently, Najib moved in and got the nine families and their extended relatives, houses in Taman Sejahtera Indah, Teluk Air Tawar.

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