Ma told could only report loss of Miri’s IC

“At the police station, we were told that the police could only take the report on my stepfather’s loss of IC but not the case of Penan intrusion as the case is now in court and could only be handled by a certain inspector,” said Ma.

By the time they left the police station, it was already 1am of Dec 20.

Ma and Miri then telephoned the inspector to check on the reasons for not allowing them to make a police report.

They were informed by the inspector that he needed time to conduct an investigation before they could lodge any report.

“Investigation is only made after we make the report. But in this case, he wanted to make an investigation first before taking our report. This is very strange,” said Ma.

Unable to accept the reason, Ma and Miri decided to draft a written report themselves and to make another attempt to submit it to the Batu Niah Police Station.

When they brought the written report to Batu Niah Police Station, they were informed that the case had been taken over by the inspector. However, they were not given any police report.

At about 3pm, Ma’s mother (who has been listed as contact person) was told that the report would be ready by Thursday (today) at Batu Niah Police Station and they were asked to go to the station to take the report.

“Today is Wednesday (yesterday),that is two days after my stepfather was named and hunted and the plantation I am in charge of was intruded. Yet, until now, I don’t even get to lodge a police report,” said Ma.

Ma said he had also called Ba Kelalan assemblyman Baru Bian, who is also the counsel for the Penans in the land dispute case, to inform the latter of the latest intrusion.

“I called Baru on Monday afternoon to inform him of the case and he said he had advised the Penans not to enter the plantation and create havoc there. But apparently, the Penans were not listening to him.

“This was not the first time that things like this happened. It happened two months ago and the Penans took 15 LNG cylinders from us. Now it happened again,” said Ma.

When contacted, Baru stressed that he did not condone the actions of the Penans for making a death threat and making disturbances in plantations.

“I don’t condone this kind of actions. The contractor should go and make police reports.

“Two months ago, the contractor ( Ma) told me about the Penan intrusion. I called the headman ( of the Penans) to tell them not to take the law into their hands.

“On Monday, I received a complaint again from the contractor. I tried to call the headman but apparently he had passed away. Now I have no way to be in touch with this Penan community. So I told the contractor to pass my message to them - don’t interfere and don’t take the law into their hands,” said Baru.

Meanwhile, as of press time, attempts to contact the police for further details were futile.