Did they or did they not burn down a makeshift tent settlement in Putrajaya in which Burmese asylum seekers - including about 20 women and children - had taken refuge the past four years?

Conflicting answers met this and several other questions following a joint operation on undocumented migrants by the People’s Volunteer Corps (Rela) and the Sepang Municipal Council (MPS).

About four years ago, more than 70 Zomi refugees from the northern region of Chin State in Burma have lived as a community of sorts in makeshift tents somewhere within the jungle fringes of Putrajaya.

Subjected from time to time to raids by Rela - the previous one being in November last year - most had managed to escape arrest.

They survived on the earning of members of the community who had found informal work and pooled their meager wages to feed the others.

Tents were destroyed

On Jan 18 this year, Rela and MPS enforcement personnel conducted a joint operation on the settlement.

A New Straits Times report on the raid against the settlement - dubbed ‘Kampung Tengga Zomi - two Zomis were caught in the dragnet while the rest escaped into the surrounding jungle.

When they returned to their tents, they were shocked to find several had been burnt to the ground together with some other items.

According to the Kuala Lumpur-based Zomi Burmese, the burnt items included plastic sheets for shelter, pots and pans for cooking, donated articles of clothing and food rations, as well as Christian Bibles.

“All of these were reduced to ashes " said Thang Khawm Pau, a Zomi refugee himself, when contacted.

He supported his assertions by supplying photographs of the scorched pages of the Bible and the Zomis’ burnt tents.

Blasting Rela for the incident, the Chiang Mai, Thailand, office of the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) said today it was only “the latest of many well-documented acts of abuse committed by the authorities against the refugee community in Malaysia.”

“For a community already living on the margins of survival, the consequences are devastating,” it said in a statement.

Rela director-general Zaidon Asmuni ( right ), however, denied that any burning of tents or other items had taken place during the operation.

“We never commit such acts as burning the possessions (of undocumented migrants),” said Zaidon when contacted.

Zaidon suggested that ‘accidents’ may occur during such operations in the melee of fleeing migrants and enforcement personnel chasing after them.

Two separate operations

He reiterated, however, that this last operation by Rela did not result in the burning of the Burmese possessions.

When contacted, an MPS spokesperson said the council has no information on allegations that any burnings had occurred.

Adding to the questions, however, is the claim contained in the New Straits Times that the raid was conducted not last Friday - as asserted by the MPS spokesperson - but last Monday, Jan 21.

Lending strength to this possibility is the admission by Zaidon that two raids were conducted by Rela.

“There were actually two separate operations,” he said in a mobile text message to Malaysiakini .

He could not confirm, however, if the second raid had in fact occurred on Jan 21.

Pau said all the Zomi women and children who used to live in the settlement had been given shelter by a church-based NGO that assists refugees.

There are over 23,000 asylum seekers and refugees from Burma's Chin State living in Malaysia. Of them, Zomis account for about 7,000.