About 300 police personnel and a fleet of bulldozers greeted the residents of Kampung Sg. Rumput in the morning on October 26, 1998 when all the menfolk had left for work. On the first day, about 31 houses were demolished. On the following day, another 37 houses were demolished despite obtaining a letter from the Prime Minister’s Office to stop evictions bringing the total to 68 houses.

Women and children who refused to leave their homes were physically removed by the police before their houses were broken. The village people tried to remove as many of their belongings from their homes but much could not be salvaged.School books, clothes, furniture and other belongings were left behind. Now crushed and entangled in the rumble of concrete that was once their home.

About half of the evicted families have built tents on the site of their demolished houses from planks and plastic covers. It is one of the worst monsoons here in Malaysia caused by the La Nina effect that has made life under these tents very difficult especially for the children who has missed almost 2 weeks of school.

On November 6, 1998 the bulldozers returned to clear the area for construction. The residents resisted and managed to stop them from breaking their tents. A woman and her family who lived in the tents closest to the construction site, defended their tents by sitting in them without budging even when the bulldozers menacingly threatened to bulldoze them together with their tents.

At present they are in the process of negotiating with the district office and land owners to obtain suitable alternative housing as promised by the state government. According to the chairperson of the village committee, Mr Sonmat bin Razak, "Low cost flats costing RM25,000 (USD8400) were offered for purchase to the village residents. The 68 evicted families were unable to purchase these flats mainly because they could not afford them. Some of them also were unable to obtain financing from banks and failed in the interview and requirements needed for the purchase. The developer had also cancelled some offers and some were not even offered these low cost flats."

In the meantime, their temporary homes are still being threatened by evictions. They have no where to go and these make shift homes are the only leverage they have in obtaining any form of resettlement. They have been living in this one place for twenty years now. They came at a time when the land was a mass of jungle and undergrowth. They cleared the land, built their home and dug their wells. Now they are surrounded by high cost houses, shopping malls and a private college. A new townage, part of a development that has left this village in the dust of its rampage.