minds of some of the ignorant property owners. When they went to the office to ask for further explanation, the staff tried to threaten or tempt them with sweet words. However, when the representatives negotiated with them, they denied the fact that they were employing the tactics of persuading the property owners one by one by referring the whole affair as misunder- standings in discourse. They delayed in giving a definite reply to the questions raised by the representatives, so even after a year's negotiation, they have still done things in their own way.
b) In the letters to the property owners and representatives as well as in the negotiation meetings, they also kept declaring that in normal circumstances, the MTR had the complete power to settle the affair on the question of indemnity and the case would not be handed over to the Land Tribunal. They stated as well that should we disagree to the valuation, we have to allow their staff to enter our buildings to survey and measure in order to arrive at a more reasonable price. The pretext sounded fair and so a lot of Property Owners were taken in.
c) The authority also made use of the conflict between the property owners and the tenants. They persuaded the tenants agreed their measuring the units, and under the force of plain-cloth detectives from C. I. D. and police tactical units a number of rented units were measured.
d) The MTR officers had employed every of the malicious means they could achieved, for example, they took photographs secretly as evidence without the consent of the owners; when they learnt that the flat-owner was out of town they immediately sent their staffs to the flat to take measure by telling the owner's family members falsely that it was the owner requested them to make the survey.
e) The shop-unit owners have not been allowed to renew their busi- ness registration and licences from the Departments concerned.
f) The tenants have been notified not to pay rents to the property owners and advised them to claim back the rents paid after 12th November, 1978. Therefore, no property owners had received any payment thereafter.
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