By Athi Shankar
GEORGE TOWN: Come Malaysia Day on Sept 16, former residents of Kampung Buah Pala will gather to mark a sombre event, the first anniversary of the demolition of their village.
Dubbed 'Black September', the ceremony would be held at an open space near the former village site.Kampung Buah Pala Residents Association chairman M Sugumaran said Malaysia Day was chosen in order to refresh the memory of Malaysians about the demolition of the 200-year-old village.
“Thanks to the Pakatan Rakyat state government and Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, Penang Indians lost their final Indian heritage village last September. We aim to organise Black September as an annual event,” he said, adding that an application would be filed for a police permit.
“We hope the police will be considerate and kind enough to give us a permit,” he told FMT.
Sugumaran said he expected at least 100 people to turn up for the ceremony, where a prayer session would also be held.
Kampung Buah Pala was once known to locals, especially Indians, as the Tamil High Chaparral due to its high population of Indian cowherds and livestock as well as unique cultural features and festivities.
The village was flattened to make way for a posh condominium project - the Oasis - undertaken by landowner Penang Civil Servant Cooperative Society and developer Nusmetro Venture (P) Sdn Bhd.
Originally, some 33 families lived in the village when the Oasis project was hatched by the previous Barisan Nasional state administration some five years ago.
The 6.5 acres was sold to the cooperative for only RM3.21 million.
However, the Gerakan-led state government inserted a clause to compel the developers to settle the compensation issue with the villagers first before the land title could be transferred.
Court case pending
Nine families agreed to the original compensation package, which was either a flat unit in the Oasis or cash, and vacated the village.
But 24 others stayed put to fight for the land, which they claimed was given to their ancestors under trust by their colonial plantation master, the Brown Family.
When the village was demolished, the Pakatan government agreed to compensate the families with a double-storey house each, to be built on a 1.5 acre plot of land at the project site.
However, nine out of the 24 families did not get the house. The houses were instead given to villagers who had already left after agreeing with the original compensation package.
According to the official version, the nine families failed to ink the documents for the houses in time. However, Sugumaran and the rest pinned the blame on Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng.
“The DAP-led state government wanted to exact revenge on us for standing up for our rights,” he claimed.
The nine families have already initiated court action to seek an order to have a full trial over the Kampung Buah Pala land status.
They have argued that since the land was under a federal trust, the state government had no right to transfer the land to a private developer.
Moreover, there had been no documented evidence to show that the federal government had ever transferred the land title to under the Penang government, read the affidavit.
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