KUCHING: Some villagers placed an Indonesian man under citizen’s arrest and then beat him up yesterday morning, sparking off more misunderstanding between an oil palm plantation and the folk of Kampung Melano in Simunjan.
The incident occurred on Monday morning when a security guard of the said plantation who patrolled the farm found that 30 villagers were harvesting oil palm fruits.
The matter was reported to the police and the company called some Indonesian workers to guard the place.
Yesterday morning, an Indonesian worker was caught by 50 villagers at the main Simunjan Gedong road and beaten before being handed over to the police around 9am.
This made the other Indonesian workers angry and 20 of them went to the police station to state their dissatisfaction.
The beaten worker was then taken to Simunjan Hospital for treatment.
Sarawak CID chief SAC Denis Leong confirmed that some regular police personnel from their headquarters and some members of the General Operations Force (GOF) were deployed to keep the peace.
He said the matter was already under investigation and he hoped that it would be resolved amicably between the villagers and the company concerned.
The misunderstanding started in 2010 and several investigations were done which even resulted in a court case.
The court had ruled that the company had the right to develop its plantation at the place.
