Farmer arrested after men chopped in dumping row in Yuen Long
Farmer arrested over attack with 60cm sickle after waste truck arrived
A farmer used a 60cm sickle to chop three men who dumped construction waste on his land as a long-running dispute escalated, police said.
The 60-year-old man was arrested in connection with yesterday morning’s attack in Pat Heung, Yuen Long.
Three men aged 25, 29 and 36, suffered injuries to their heads, hands, abdomens and legs, but their conditions were not said to be life-threatening. Police said officers recovered a blood-soaked sickle from the village.
Inspector Tam Tsz-wai, commander of the Yuen Long district crime squad, said the attack was the result of a long-running dispute between villagers and waste dumpers.
“We believe someone has been dumping construction waste on the farmland for as long as four years,” Tam said. “We will investigate the wounding case, as well as the dumping case.”
Police said the arrival of a dump truck in the village at about 10.30am enraged villagers. Fearing violence, the truck driver is thought to have called in other men for back-up, who arrived in two private cars.
The men in the cars were then attacked with a stone and a farmer’s sickle, police said.
Police were called in by a passer-by, with officers arriving to find the three wounded men outside the village. They were taken to Tuen Mun Hospital and Pok Oi Hospital in Yuen Long, where they remained overnight. Tam said he did not believe triads were involved in the case.
The farmer had worked the land for more than a decade, Tam said, although he was not the landowner.
The Planning Department said last year that 70 landowners had fallen victim to waste dumping across 8,200 square metres of land in the area.
Leung Fuk-yuen, chairman of the Shap Pat Heung rural committee, previously said that there were land disputes everywhere in the New Territories involving illegal occupation and waste disposal.
