MIC told to prove land claim

A member of the Effingham Tamil school board of governors says that a land search showed that six acres were originally allocated for a school.

PETALING JAYA: The board of governors of a Tamil school here has challenged the MIC to prove its claim that a three-acre land beside the school belonged to the Barisan Nasional aligned Indian-based political party.

VT Rajen, a member of the Effingham Tamil school board of governors, said MIC must show the evidence to back its claim or return the piece of land that was originally designated for the school.

“We want MIC to do the right thing by ensuring that the Effingham Tamil school gets back the three acres of prime land,” he told FMT.

The school is located in Bandar Utama, Damansara. Accusations of the land grab first surfaced in 2008 after former students and residents claimed that the developer of Bandar Utama has allocated six acres of land for the school in 1999.

MIC, however, countered this claim, saying that there was an error in the description of the proprietor in the land title and that the party is the rightful owner of the three acres.

However, Rajen dismissed this claim, saying that it was “unacceptable”.

Rajen also showed a copy of the Bandar Utama land plan which was drafted in 1996 by the Petaling Jaya land office.

According to the plan, there were two pieces of land – lots 28813 and 28814 – for a religious school and a primary school respectively.

“Each of the schools was awarded 24,293 square metres of land equivalent to six acres,” Rajen said.

However, he said a recent land search on the Tamil school lot revealed that the six acres had been broken into two separate lots in 2005.

“The MIC seized the Tamil school’s land after 2005,” he alleged.

“If it is true that the six acres were divided into two halves between 1990 and 1995, then it should have been recorded in the state executive council meeting. Can MIC reveal minutes of meetings as proof?” he asked.

“The land was designated for public use and should not be sold or transferred to any individual or political party, hence it was not suitable for the MIC to use it to build its headquarters there,” he added.