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Contractor in a huff over police reluctance to record his complaint against intruders into plantation

 Attempts by an oil palm plantation contractor to make a police report on the intrusion of several Penans into the plantation have been frustrated by police red tape and reluctance to accept his complaint.

The contractor, Harry Ma said until yesterday, he still had not been able to make the report despite going to Batu Niah Police Station at least twice.

The Sg Suai Penan community who are locked in a dispute over the plantation’s land had brought their case to the court but decided to take the law into their own hands and threatened the workers.

According to Ma, an unknown number of Penans, some bearing firearms, entered the plantation in 15 four-wheel drive vehicles about 11am on Dec 19 (Monday).

“At least one of them was spotted bearing a shotgun. They came in, taking away all the foodstuffs in the canteen as well as five liquefied natural gas (LNG) cylinders.

“Then they took the wallet of my supervisor, who is my stepfather (Miri Jamak, 45) and pointed at his picture on the identification card and said they were looking for him to kill him,” Ma told The Borneo Post yesterday.

Miri who was forewarned by the workers, went into hiding at the nearby jungle and came out only at 10pm on the same day.

Ma then brought Miri to Batu Niah Police Station to lodge reports – firstly for the death threat made against Miri and the unlawful possession of his IC by the Penans and secondly for the illegal intrusion into the plantation and the alleged snatching of property such as LNG cylinders and foodstuffs.

“At the police station, we were told that the police could only take the report on my stepfather’s loss of IC but not the case of Penan intrusion as the case is now in court and could only be handled by a certain inspector,” said Ma.

By the time they left the police station, it was already 1am of Dec 20.

As Ma and Miri then telephoned the inspector to check on the reasons for not allowing them to make a police report.

They were informed by the inspector that he needed time to conduct an investigation before they could lodge any report.

“Investigation is only made after we make the report. But in this case, he wanted to make an investigation first before taking our report. This is very strange,” said Ma.

Unable to accept the reason, Ma and Miri decided to draft a written report themselves and to make another attempt to submit it to the Batu Niah Police Station.

When they brought the written report to Batu Niah Police Station, they were informed that the case had been taken over by the inspector. However, they were not given any police report.

At about 3pm, Ma’s mother (who has been listed as contact person) was told that the report would be ready by Thursday (today) at Batu Niah Police Station and they were asked to go to the station to take the report.

“Today is Wednesday (yesterday),that is two days after my stepfather was named and hunted and the plantation I am in charge of was intruded. Yet, until now, I don’t even get to lodge a police report,” said Ma.

Ma said he had also called Ba Kelalan assemblyman Baru Bian, who is also the counsel for the Penans in the land dispute case, to inform the latter of the latest intrusion.

“I called Baru on Monday afternoon to inform him of the case and he said he had advised the Penans not to enter the plantation and create havoc there. But apparently, the Penans were not listening to him.

“This was not the first time that things like this happened. It happened two months ago and the Penans took 15 LNG cylinders from us. Now it happened again,” said Ma.

When contacted, Baru stressed that he did not condone the actions of the Penans for making a death threat and making disturbances in plantations.

“I don’t condone this kind of actions. The contractor should go and make police reports.

“Two months ago, the contractor (Ma) told me about the Penan intrusion. I called the headman (of the Penans) to tell them not to take the law into their hands.

“On Monday, I received a complaint again from the contractor. I tried to call the headman but apparently he had passed away. Now I have no way to be in touch with this Penan community.  So I told the contractor to pass my message to them – don’t interfere and don’t take the law into their hands,” said Baru.

Meanwhile, as of press time, attempts to contact the police for further details were futile.

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by Lian Cheng

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