The alleged incident at the Bayan Lepas International Airport on Feb 10 came on the heels of a meeting that Rahim and three other MCCM leaders had with Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng on Feb 8, to discuss allegations by  PMCC that the state government was biased against Malay traders.

According to the report, made available to theSun, Rahim, 58, was with Malacca Malay Chamber chairman Datuk Md Ramly Mohamad, and Terengganu Malay Chamber deputy president A. Razak Yaakup, at the airport at about 10am when he was suddenly accosted by an angry Rizal, 39.

Rahim, Ramly and Razak were part of an MCCM delegation to Penang led by deputy president Datuk Muhammad Muhiyuddin Abdullah, to meet Lim after Rizal and several NGOs had organised a demonstration against Lim.

The report claimed that Rizal used abusive words like “babi”, “sial”, “binatang”, “barua” and “kurang ajar”  during the alleged airport incident, while saying: “I am after you now, you be careful.”

“At that point, he raised his hand to hit me and was blocked by Datuk Ramly,” Rahim said in the report.

“I proceeded to move away from there as I did not want to entertain him,” he said, claiming that Rizal then told Razak that he would shoot Rahim and throw a shoe on his face at a forthcoming meeting.

Rahim, who is also Pahang Malay Chamber acting president, then lodged the report at the Selayang Police Station in Gombak on Feb 12.

He said he was making the report due to safety concerns for himself, his family and friends.

When contacted, Rahim said he would elaborate upon his return from overseas. When contacted, Rizal refuted all the allegations in the police report.

He said he has written to the MCCM, asking for a meeting of all state Malay chambers in the country to deliberate over grievances against the Penang government's policies against Malay traders.

On Feb 9, Rizal had told reporters that he had written to the MCCM  to express his “disappointment and sadness” with Rahim for meeting with Lim over the PMCC’s accusations.

Rizal said the PMCC, which led a demonstration against Lim on Feb 5, was not consulted on the meeting, and that the leaders had not come to Penang before this to check the situation.

It is understood that the MCCM delegation was shown statistics during its meeting with Lim to counter accusations that the state was unfair to Malays.

These included figures that that some 88% of the state’s contracts through open tender in 2008 and 2009 were awarded to Bumiputra companies, while 76% were given to Bumiputras through call for quotations.

As for unlicensed hawkers the Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) had acted on in the same period, only 1,600 were Malays compared to 2,809 Chinese and 443 Indians.

The state has also said it had only acted on 30 illegal structures on the island, of which only nine were built by Malays, and 39 in Seberang Perai, of which only seven were of Malays, from 2008 to so far this year.

Rizal has since pointed to occupancy of lots in MPPP markets, which showed that Malays occupied 423 stalls, while Chinese had 1,726 stalls and Indians only 128, as of Sept 30, 2009.

He said in the MPPP’s hawker centres, Malays occupied 419 stalls, Chinese 1,792 and Indians only 97 during the same period. -- theSun