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Residents sue Tangerang administration over eviction
Residents of Batujaya subdistrict, Batuceper district, Tangerang, Banten, have filed a lawsuit against the Tangerang city administration for evicting people from land that they claim to have lived on for decades
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span>Residents of Batujaya subdistrict, Batuceper district, Tangerang, Banten, have filed a lawsuit against the Tangerang city administration for evicting people from land that they claim to have lived on for decades.
Jenny Silvia Sirait of the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Jakarta), who represented the evictees, said 10 families comprising 35 people had lived in four houses on 380 square meters of land since 1959. However, the Tangerang administration evicted them on Oct. 3 last year after claiming that they were living on state land.
“After they were evicted, they were given no clarity about where they should live or relocate to,” Jenny said after filing the lawsuit at the Tangerang District Court on Tuesday.
She said the residents’ previous queries about the status of the land had been ignored.
Defendants in the lawsuit are the Tangerang administration, the Tangerang Education Agency, the National Police, the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Land Agency (BPN).
Jenny said the residents had paid property tax (PBB) since 1994 despite having no land titles. She argued that according to Article 24 of a 1997 government regulation on land registration, ownership of land can be registered as long as evidence can be produced that proves control over the land. PBB receipts dating back decades can be considered as proof, she said.
The residents are demanding that their homes be rebuilt and that they be compensated for expenses they had incurred over the past six months because of their eviction.
Muhiddin, 69, one of the evictees, said he had lived in Batujaya since 1984 in a house he inherited from his parents, who built the house in the 1960s.
“My parents built the house in the 1960s based on a permit by the subdistrict head at the time,” he claimed.
However, he admitted that his parents had only been given verbal permission and had not received a written document for the land and building to support their claim.
Muhiddin explained that in 1981, part of the land was used for road construction, which reduced the land plots on which the four houses stood to 380 sq m, with each house measuring 95 sq m.
He said that in 1993, administration officials had surveyed the location and in 1994 started issuing PBB notices, which were issued annually and settled up until the time they were evicted.
Muhiddin lived in the house with five other people: his wife, son and three grandchildren. After the eviction, the family lived in a nearby rented house for Rp 1 million (US$71.55) per month, a steep increase from the Rp 125,000 per year for the PBB.
“If it’s possible, we want to get our land ownership back that so that we can rebuild our houses,” Muhiddin said.
Tangerang administration spokesperson Felix Mulyawan did not return The Jakarta Post’s calls on Tuesday.
Tangerang Public Order Agency head Mumung Nurwana said last year that the eviction was necessary as the land was a state asset. Moreover, the administration planned to use the land for the expansion of an elementary school as the houses were located behind the school.
A clash between residents and agency officials broke out during the eviction last year, tribunnews.com reported. However, Mumung said the residents had received prior warning about the eviction.
