news feature When a village in the outskirts of Shah Alam was ear-marked for development as part of the city's modernisation programme, the progress came with a huge price.

The development project left more than 100 families homeless, directly contributing to many of them breaking up and facing more socio-economic problems as a result of their displacement. Some have even resorted to crime, and at least one arrested for murder.

The families say that corrupt local politicians, well-connected entrepreneurs and incompetent administrators have all contributed to this situation.

Even their cry to the courts for justice was swiftly denied, without being given a proper hearing, it is claimed.

The group of residents are now at a loss as to what course of action they should take next.

"We want houses to replace the ones taken away from us," said T Mohan, an affected resident who has since become the leader for the residents.

Mohan, a bookshop hand, said that their former village, Kampung Sungai Nipah, has now been replaced by the massive Subang Sentral housing project. In the prime land, which overlooks both the Kesas and North-South Highways, now stands eight blocks of service apartments and shopping lots and plans to build a shopping complex are underway.

"The new houses are already completed ... they are waiting for the issuance of certificates of fitness," Mohan told malaysiakini.

The residents were issued eviction notices in 1996 but since no other follow-up actions came along, the residents stayed put in the village. It was the same story for the next two years.

Demolition team

The crunch came in 1999 when the developers - armed with local council machineries and personnel, came to tear down the houses - claiming that the residents had failed to move out despite three previous eviction notices. They also had a massive police presence to ensure the demolition job went unhindered.

"Even before that the developers had launched their project in our village. They have put up huge billboards advertising the housing project. All the while, we were kept in the dark on what was happening," said Mohan.

"We did not move out after receiving the eviction notices as there was nothing to show that the project was definitely going to take place. No one spoke to us about any compensation or alternative housing."

He added that after the launching of the project, the residents had met with their local state government representatives.

"One of them promised us that he would get us low-costs houses, while others said we would get adequate compensation. However there was a change in the official tone later and we were told to deal with the developers," said Mohan.

Connected companies

The developers of the project are Million Horizons Sdn Bhd and Tanjung Istimewa Sdn Bhd and both had former Selangor mentri besar Muhammad Muhammad Taib's brother Hasan as one of the two directors. The elder Taib was in power for 11 years since 1986 before he stepped down in 1997 after he was alleged to be embroiled in corrupt practices.

Mohan said that the developers did offer them compensation but "it was not good enough".

Hasan was not available for comment but a company official who requested anonymity said that all residents were offered compensation as well as an opportunity to purchase a new lot in the project.

"As far as we know, compensation has been given to them," said the official.

Mohan does not dispute this, but claims that the residents were short-changed by the developers.

"We have been here for the past 35 years. They wanted to relocate us to a longhouse colony that had shoddy conditions. Alternatively we were offered a very low financial compensation."

Local politics

Mohan claimed that even the financial compensation was not evenly distributed due to the involvement of a local MIC branch chairperson.

"Money was distributed through the MIC, and MIC leaders here played politics with it. Only MIC members were given the money and non-MIC members were left out of the compensation scheme," claimed Mohan.

He said when they approached upper-level state MIC leaders, they were told to get back to their own branch leaders.

"How can these branch leaders help us if they are also on the take? And we were accused of being anti-government when we sought the help of DAP and Parti Sosialis Malaysia."

When asked about these accusations, MIC Selangor refused to comment, adding that it was a party policy for complaints to be brought up from the "grounds through the respective layers of leaders".

Mohan said the residents also approached the Shah Alam land office to find out more about the status of the land their village was on.

"In January 1999, the land officer told us that we were still the temporary licence holders of the land."

Justice denied

With this piece of information, the residents, led by Mohan, filed a suit the same year at the Shah Alam High Court against the eviction notices and a temporary stay was granted in their favour.

"Then in June that year, our case was transferred to another judge and he, after a short hearing, ruled against us. Three days later, the developers started the demolition."

Mohan added that the residents who had resisted the demolition were arrested by the police and all the houses in the village were demolished.

"Some of us rebuilt our houses there while many left the place although they were born and bred there."

Two months later, Mohan and several others who initiated the rebuilding were arrested by the police and a second round of demolition took place.

"When we were released few days later, we found our families living in makeshift tents by the roadside.

"That was the end of our resistence to the taking over of our land. We knew we couldn't oppose them, so we just started squatting in our relatives and friend's houses.

"Some of us had to continuously shift houses and became very disillusioned. Many had to change jobs to suit their new living areas. Many lost jobs because of this and some even resorted to crime."

He said that one of the displaced residents had built himself a hut in a secondary jungle near the old village and had been recently arrested for murder after a body was found in the vicinity.

"We thought the court would help us but the judge who ruled against us did not even bother to listen to our arguments. Although his oral judgment was made immediately, the written judgment was only recently released.

"But we still cannot appeal against the decision because the sealed copy has not been issued."

Contempt and cronyism

To counter this, the residents have re-filed the case and initiated a contempt proceeding against the land officer. The hearing will commence next April.

"The land officer told us that we were still the TOL holders of the land but the court ruled that the land belonged to the court. We, however, discovered in a Registrar of Companies search that the developers had mortgaged the land for a bank loan of RM7 million in 1998.

"How can the developers mortgage the land if it belonged to the government, or to us?" asked Mohan.

"So was there any special government preference given to these developers at our expense?"

With this in mind, the residents lodged a report to the state Anti-Corruption Agency in September 1999, but Mohan said the agency was not interested in looking into the matter.

"They only took down our statements on our insistence in May last year and there has been no news from them since then," said Mohan.

The Selangor ACA said it could not comment on any pending investigations.

"The housing project is already on our land and we are homeless," lamented Mohan.