Demolition work on 18 of the remaining 22 houses started at 11.15am — but by the time it ended at 2.40pm, only portions of the houses were torn down, while the electricity supply was disconnected.

The other four houses are spared for now as the owners have agreed to demolish them on their own.

Unlike the previous three occasions when the residents — with strong support from Hindraf, Makkal Sakthi and MIC — had put up a brave front to prevent their houses from being torn down, this time around they seemed to have given up hope.

Last Sept 3, when the developer went in to demolish the houses, 18 people, including five villagers, were arrested for trying to prevent the demolition teams from doing their job.

There was hardly any resistance from the villagers today and their supporters, who had camped within the village for months, seem to have left them in a lurch. With hardly anyone to help them "defend" their village, the villagers caved in.

But there was one incident. Village Residents Association assistant secretary C Tharmaraj's mother R Indrani, 60, threatened to set herself on fire.

When demolition crew tore down the fencing of her house, Indrani doused herself in kerosene and tried to set herself alight, only to be stopped by her son.

Some of the villagers were given time to move out their belongings before their homes were partially demolished.

Police personnel including a light strike force team were deployed to prevent any untoward incident.

Nusmetro director Gary Ho was left alone today, unlike previously when he suffered bruises during scuffles with some of the village supporters.

With no hope left for them, some villagers were seen making a last-ditch effort to get better compensation from Ho.

Ho promised to help the residents move their belongings and even offered accommodation for a month at Nusmetro's flats in Jelutong.

After negotiations, some of the residents were also offered RM125,000 by Ho, in lieu of the double-storey house offer which some of the residents had rejected.

The earlier offer was RM115,000, which was rejected by the residents.

Landowner Koperasi Pegawai Kerajaan Pulau Pinang (KPKPP) chairman Abdul Razak Mansor, who was also at the scene, said the Oasis development project would commence with the land being cleared, and the houses levelled in the next few weeks.

There were some tense moments at the end of the demolition exercise when the excavator almost tore down a cowshed located on an adjacent plot belonging to the state government.

When the residents created a ruckus questioning why the enclosure was being demolished, the developer backed off and called off the demolition of the enclosure.

The Kampung Buah Pala case dated back to August 2004 and July 2005, when the previous state executive council reportedly approved the sale of the land at a premium of RM20 a sq ft or RM6.42 million. In 2007, the executive council halved the premium.

The land was supposed to have been given to the KPKPP in exchange for a plot of land, which was used to build the newer court buildings in Light Street recently.

The residents had sued the cooperative and the High Court ruled in their favour in October last year.

The decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal on May 11, giving the cooperative and Nusmetro vacant possession and the villagers took the case to the federal court, which also dismissed their case on June 14 on grounds that the villagers did not have locus standi.

They appealed again and the case was mentioned again on Aug 18, but again the Federal Court threw the case out.

The residents also went up in arms against the Pakatan Rakyat state government, which they claimed had promised to prevent the village from being demolished as part of their March 8, 2008 general election pledge.

Following intervention by the state government, some of the 24 houseowners accepted Nusmetro's offer of a double-storey house, while the rest are now trying to seek monetary compensation from the developer.