BY WONG PEK MEI

NG Ah Sang, who practically grew up at the Hock Sui Tong temple in Kepong, is worried about the fate of the 63-year-old temple as development is threatening to swallow it up.

The 43-year-old is the third-generation caretaker of the temple, having replaced his father who passed away four years ago.

The Hock Sui Tong is in the limelight after a property developer decided to evict the community temple to make way for development.

“My grandfather was the first to take care of the temple. I feel sad and that it’s unfair for the temple to be taken away without any proper discussion with the developer,” Ng said when met at Menara DBKL 1 on Jalan Raja Laut.

Ng’s sister, Ng Bee Wan, 40, said the temple also functioned as a place for residents in the area to gather for festivities.

“My family has lived in this area for more than 50 years,” she said.

Her brother added that they would like an urgent discussion to be held with Tengku Adnan, Loga Bala, Amin Nordin and the developer of the land to settle the issue amicably.

“We want a discussion to be held with them and the developer of the land as there has been no discussions held so far.

“All the settlers have been compensated to move, but nothing has been done for the temple, which is odd,” said Tan.

According to him, the 526 residents in the area had been resettled to a low-cost flat by the developer.

Meanwhile, the lawyer representing the temple, P. Uthayakumar, claimed that in a Parliamentary Hansard dated July 10, 2008 the Federal Territories Ministry pledged to Malaysians that no more temples would be demolished in the country.

“So it is the corporate social responsibility of the ministry and DBKL to relocate and allocate a land for the temple as it is considered historical,” he said.

Uthayakumar said they were hoping the temple could stay put.

“But if it’s in the way of development, we can negotiate to move. But there must be a permanent land title for the temple,” he said.

In December last year, the committee members of the Hock Sui Tong temple in Kepong had taken legal action against the property developer for wanting to evict the temple.

The committee had approached a lawyer to get an injunction against the eviction notice.

The eviction notice was served on Aug 24 and demanded that the temple cease operations and stated that it would be demolished within seven days.

On Nov 19, Ah Sang was served a notice requesting the temple committee to be present at the High Court on Nov 21.

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