Residents of a Sentul village yesterday lodged a police report at the district police headquarters for physical harassment from those wanting to evict them from their locality.

Villagers of Kampung Chim Lee, Kuala Lumpur, said this is their fourth police report on the matter.

"We want the investigation to be taken over by the Sentul IPD because we fear no action has been taken on our earlier police reports," the villagers said in a press statement distributed to the media at the Sentul police headquarters yesterday.

The villagers, who claim to have lived there for three generations, are facing eviction after the Kuala Lumpur City Hall allocated the land for a commercial and residential project.

Kampung Chim Lee residents association vice-president Go Kim Peng believes a fire that occurred at the village on Feb 18 was an act of arson to force their eviction.

In his police report at the Kepong police station on Feb 19, Go said an unidentified man had also tried to attack him with a parang and the man was stopped by Fire Department personnel at the scene.

In a separate police report, resident Yin Swee Kim said he saw a man lighting the fire.

"The man lit a fire but I did not take any action because I thought he was burning rubbish.

"At 8pm, the fire grew bigger, prompting me to call Go, who called the Fire Department," Yin said.

In his report, Yin said a Fire Department personnel told him the fire was deliberate and "not caused by burning rubbish".

"I believe this was an act of sabotage...," he said.

Told to vacate

A group of men had last June also told the villagers to vacate the property or DBKL would flatten their homes, resident Tan Poh Wah said in an earlier police report, also lodged at the Kepong police station.

The resident said the land was given to them as compensation by the Chim Lee Tin Mining Co in 1979, as compensation for land taken by the mining firm.

However, in January 2016, DBKL posted a notice that it received an application to convert the land from residential to commercial development, for the construction of affordable apartments.

The residents received an eviction notice from DBKL on June 6, 2016, giving them seven days to vacate the property and tear down any structures they have built on the land.

The residents said the property developer offered to move them to a public housing project and pay for two years' rent and utilities for one month.

They rejected the offer and have complained to DBKL, but to no avail.

They said work on the land has commenced on the property, without their consent.

"They also put up hoardings around (our neighbourhood). We can't even sleep at night, we don't know when they will come and (demolish) this place," Tan said.

Malaysiakini is withholding the name of the developer pending its response to our queries.

Calls to the telephone number listed on the letter issued to the residents by the developer could not be connected.

The address listed on the letter is that of a hotel and the hotel staff contacted have no knowledge of a developer operating from their premises.