Batu Kawan residents stage demo over grouses

The protesters fail to present their memorandum to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng.

GEORGE TOWN: A group of Batu Kawan residents today held a peaceful demonstration here, citing loss of confidence in Deputy Chief Minister II P Ramasamy and state executive councillor Law Choo Kiang.

Ramasamy is Batu Kawan MP while Law is Bukit Tambun state assemblyman.

They want Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to look into their problems but they dispersed after refusing to submit a 20-point memorandum to a Chief Minister’s representative.

Instead the group demanded for a new date to meet and hand over the memorandum to Lim directly.

The protesters were led by Ladang Batu Kawan Hindu temple, Sri Maha Muthu Mariamman Kovil committee chairman A Nallakumar.

The residents’ 20-point memorandum included demanding the state government to allot a three-acre plot each for Tamil school and the Hindu temple.

They also want the state government to immediately effect ownership transfer of the six-acre Hindu cemetery land from Penang Development Coorporation to the temple committee.

The memorandum also asked the state government to build new houses for 45 Indian families in Batu Kawan.

“All these were promised by both Ramasamy and Law during the 2008 general election campaign.  They have broken their election promises,” alleged Nallakumar.

The memorandum also wants the state government to allot agricultural land for individual entrepreneurship, similar to that given to other ethnic groups in the area.

The residents also want the government to build a Hindu crematorium inside the cemetery.
New IPF acting president MV Mathialagan, who is a local resident, said Batu Kawan people were disappointed with the performance of Ramasamy and Law.

“We are not making unreasonable demands. All these promises were made by both of them during the election campaign,” he said.

Several letters

Nallakumar claimed that Ramasamy and Law have hardly visited the residents and listened to their problems since being elected to public office.

A resident, fisherman A Rajasegar, said Ramasamy promised a year ago to provide RM25,000 to rebuild a fishery platform for boats used by some 30 Indian fishermen in the area.

“But until today, he has not shown up ,” he told reporters.

During the demonstration, police refused to allow Nallakumar and several others to go up to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) at level 28 at Komtar to submit the memorandum to Lim.

Instead, a representative, D Bhavanes, was dispatched by the CMO to collect the memorandum from Nallakumar. Bhavanes claimed that Lim was not in his office to collect the memorandum personally.

Nallakumar claimed that he had already written several letters to Lim informing him about today’s protest and memorandum.

“Lim is our elected chief minister and he should have met us face to face and received our memorandum in good faith,” he said.

He added that the residents would proceed to meet Pakatan Rakyat de facto leader and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim if Lim failed to meet them.

When contacted, both Ramasamy and Law could not be reached.