Police under probe

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK

A MAN died and several people were injured when police allegedly fired on people living in a settlement which was being cleared for a housing project in Port Moresby.
Senior Inspector Brian Kombe, the capital city’s metropolitan superintendent, told The National yesterday that the residents were trying to prevent the development of the housing project.
Kombe said police were deployed to the site to protect the developers of the housing project.
“But the settlers attempted to stop the developers and they wanted to destroy the developers’ properties,” he said.
“The police allegedly opened fire and killed a settler. The incident is now being investigated.”
The dead man was identified as Ira Ora, 25, from Kamo village in Pangia. He recently graduated from the Port Moresby Business College with a Diploma in Accounting. He was recently married and has a one-month-old baby.
Most of the people living at the settlement are from Pangia district in Southern Highlands. Three of the families were evicted on Saturday.
Community leaders from Pangia, of which Prime Minister Peter O’Neill is the MP, are calling on him, National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop, Lands Minister Benny Allen and acting Lands Secretary Luther Sipison to find out how a housing estate was allowed to be developed on State land reserved for the Department of Civil Aviation.
Community leader Aris Nomo said the housing scheme developer arrived with the bulldozer with three police vehicles at around 7.30am on Saturday.
“The bulldozer tore down three houses. It was just about to bulldoze the fourth houses when the people whose houses had been bulldozed started crying and shouting,” he said.
“The noise attracted everyone in the community. They approached the police to enquire about the eviction. We were surprised as there was no eviction notice, no survey mapping and documents and no awareness in the community that these houses are within the housing development plan. They just came and started bulldozing the houses.”
He said the police officers saw the crowd congregating and opened fired using tear gas and bullets.
“In the process the victim (Ora) got shot in the chest and was rushed to the hospital. Unfortunately he died there.”
Nomo said the Pangia people had been living on the land for 40 years.
“This was a swamp area and we spend our own money and effort to drain out the swamp to build houses here. If the developer wanted to develop this area, it should have moved us to settle in another area before development takes place,” he said.