KUANTAN: Five platoons of the Territorial Army will be mobilised in an operation to stop illegal occupation of land and forest clearing in the Cameron Highlands, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim.
He said the operation would involve the participation of between 200 and 300 members of the Department of Civil Defence who help the Forestry Department replant trees in the affected areas.
“We do not want Cameron Highlands to be like Lojing in Kelantan, which had been cleared so badly that it affected the climate there,” he said in a statement.
On Monday, he attended a briefing on the operation known as Op Gading in Cameron Highlands.
During the briefing, Shahidan instructed Cameron Highlands district officer Datuk A. Rahman Hamzah to organise a campaign on the planting of a million trees as soon as possible.
In a separate operation codenamed Op Kesan, Cameron Highlands acting police chief ASP Azmi Mahmood said that 87 illegal immigrants were arrested at a construction site in Tanah Rata here yesterday morning. — Bernama
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