A police report was lodged on Monday after an oil palm plantation in Mukah claimed a group of longhouse folk had set up a blockade outside their estate and intruded on the estate to collect oil palm fruits.

Manager of Kenyana Estate, 12 km from Mukah, belonging to Rimwood Pelita (Mukah) Plantation Sdn Bhd said dozens of tons of the fruit had been taken away by the intruders which he described as “illegally” done.

In his report he claimed that “the group of up to 30 men and women had entered illegally to collect our company’s oil palm fruits”.

Identifying himself as Yong, the manager said he had taken the police investigating team to the plantation and both he and the police had seen the group in the act of “illegally” collecting the fruits, which he regarded as “theft”.

Yong admitted the incident stemmed from the NCR land dispute but said it was fortunate that both parties had remained calm.

He said none of the parties was armed, and both sides refrained from violence.

Pointing out that both parties never came to the negotiation table, he said the company left the matter on illegal collection of fruits to the police and the NCR land issue to their lawyer.

He claimed his company had a rightful claim on the over 10,000 ha estate.

He said part of the land caught in the dispute covering 1,020 ha was Phase Five of Kenaya’s oil palm project.

Adding that the dispute started when the villagers filed a court application to claim NCR on the land, Yong said they had the legal land title from the state government for farming.

However, he said since 2015, the application by the villagers had been struck thrice, and last November, Rimwood Pelita filed an injunction against the NCR land claim, but they had not been able to proceed with it because the longhouse folks declined to accept the notice served on them.

“This is the second time the longhouse folks have set up a blockade to our estate. This first occurred last September when we had to stop work for a week.”

He said the blockade caused about 200 workers to stop work.

During the blockade in September he said the longhouse folks planted a PKR flag at the site.

It is unclear how the police have classified the case.

Mukah police chief DSP Jimmy Panyau, when contacted, said he did not have a full picture of the incident yet but confirmed the station received the report.

Pointing out that he was currently on leave, he said he could not comment further on the case as it was under investigation.

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by Borneo Post

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