By Athi ShankarGEORGE TOWN: The Pakatan Rakyat government confirmed that it allowed developers of the Oasis condominium to use the livestock ranch area at Kampung Buah Pala as an access path to the project site.
At a press conference at his Komtar office here today, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng confirmed giving the green light to Nusmetro Venture (P) Sdn Bhd to go through the ranches to reach the project site.
District land office sources confirmed that the ranches were sitting on state-owned land, not the project site.
Despite giving the nod, Lim, however, said he knew nothing about the demolition carried out by Nusmetro at the ranches over the past three days, the latest being today.
On Wednesday, one of the two ranches, owned by cowherd K Sivanandam, was torn down by a demolition team hired by Nusmetro.
This morning at 11.30am, the same demolition team started to wreck the last remaining cow ranch, owned by R Subramanian, in the former Indian traditional village.
The demolition left some 300 cows, goats and other livestock homeless, and straying on the streets in Bukit Gelugor area.
A non-committal Lim said he would leave it to the cowherds and Nusmetro to resolve the dispute.
“Possibly the developer has to remove the ranches because they were blocking the access to the project site,” said Lim.
Suspicion has been growing over past few days that the state government has been tacitly backing the developer to get rid of the ranches, the final remaining symbol of Kampung Buah Pala.
Kampung Buah Pala was once popular called High Chaparral after a television western because of its population of cowherds, cattle, goats and other livestock, unique Indian cultural features and festivities.
The 200-year-old Indian traditional village was demolished last September by Nusmetro, while families were still in
their homes, to pave the way for a posh condominium project called the Oasis.The village demolition has turned out to be a political thorn in the flesh of the ruling Pakatan government.
Like Wednesday’s demolition, Subramanian’s ranch was also demolished by a group of men using an excavator and sledgehammers. The demolition team failed to produce any notice of evacuation or demolition from the authorities to Subramanian before tearing through the ranch.
Yesterday, Penang Island Municipal Council president Patahiyah Ismail confirmed that the council had not issued any notice of evacuation to the ranches and its enforcement unit was not involved in the demolition Sivanandam and Subramanian have been seeking the state authorities’ assistance to find an alternative site to rear their livestock since the village was demolished last year.
However, their efforts have been fruitless until today.
Both are now contemplating selling their cows and starting afresh with a new livelihood.
Kampung Buah Pala, the last traditional Tamil village, was once the main milk supplier for islanders, including to all government hospitals and clinics.
This week’s ranch demolition brings down the final curtain on the once popular High Chaparral and closes another chapter of the Indian community’s legacy on the island.
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