KUCHING: A total of 14 persons from Sebangan in Simunjan area, who claimed that their land had been trespassed by companies, filed a summons against them yesterday.
HERE IT IS: Counsel Baru Bian shows the group’s statement of claim in the courthouse.
The plaintiffs named five defendants in the case including two companies.
They were representing proprietors, occupiers, holders and/or claimants of Native Customary Rights (NCR) over land in Kampung Entanggor, Ensika, Lumut, Arus Dayak, Tongkah Dayak, Tongkah Dayak Lubuk Manta, Tongkah Dayak Rumah Panjai, Lunying, Belimbing Besi, Ketimbong and Bajong Ili, Bajong Ili Atas, Bajong Ili Tengah and Bajong Ili Baruh.
In the suit filed in the High Court Registry through Messrs Baru Bian Advocates and Solicitors, the group claimed that their land had been trespassed and subjected to illegal logging activities.
The ‘disputed land’ was located at Sungai Sebangan and Sungai Sebuyau, Simunjan.
The plaintiffs also alleged that the companies’ activities had affected their farms and longhouse sites by their construction of logging roads, while extracting timber on land which does not fall under any licensed area.
A group of villagers had also sent a memorandum to Human Rights Commission (Suhakam).
Some of them had set up a blockade at Selabu along Sungai Sebangan, claiming they had no other option to stop the companies from extracting timber.
The plaintiffs said they wanted a declaration that the land in question was Native Customary Land (NCL), and a prohibitory injunction to stop the companies from encroaching into their land and clearing, using or occupying the NCL.
They basically asked that loss and damages suffered by them be assessed.
Four days after the blockade was set up, seven of the plaintiffs were arrested and placed on remand to facilitate police probe of a case where a timber camp and heavy machinery were torched.
Subsequently, they were released without any charge against them.
The plaintiffs also claimed that Sungei Selabu, Sungai Ijuk and Sungai Sebangan were found polluted which affected their lives.
They said the polluted and murky water affected their farming areas, destroying their hunting and fishing grounds and plants in their cultivated gardens.