Days after a high-level committee in Meghalaya recommended relocation of evicting Sikhs staying ‘illegally’ at ‘Punjabi Lane’ in Shillong, Sikh groups have started opposing the move. Today Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said he will take up the matter of alleged eviction of Sikhs in Shillong with the Union Home Minister.
The Harijan Panchayat Committee, representative of Sikhs in Shillong, has also strongly opposed the move, saying it will “fight tooth and nail” to stop the government from carrying out the drive. The HPC secretary Gurjit Singh told PTI, “The HPC, which represents the interests of hundreds of Dalit Sikh families living in Them lew Mawlong area or Punjabi Lane for the past many years, has rejected the report of the high-level committee.”
Singh also said that the 2.5-acre colony, located close to the state’s biggest traditional market, served as lifeline to many families, who had set up shops and other businesses in the area. He further added, “We will die for our land but won’t allow any illegal, unlawful, unethical and unjust action by the Meghalaya government.”
The state govt had taken the decision to relocate the Sikhs from the Them lew Mawlong area of the state capital Shillong, following a recommendation by a high-level committee headed by Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong. The govt intends to use the area to house govt employees.
Cabinet met today to discuss the recommendations of the High Level Committee on the Sweepers’ Colony issue. Following are the recommendations by the committee & the way forward: pic.twitter.com/NU9ZkE95cO
— Conrad Sangma (@SangmaConrad) October 7, 2021
On Thursday, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma had tweeted to inform that the cabinet had met to discuss the recommendations of the High-Level Committee on the Sweepers’ Colony issue.
The CM said that the committee had recommended the urban affairs department to find a suitable location for the relocation of people who reside in the area, as those serving with the state government will be relocated to the official quarters of the concerned departments. CM Sangma said, “The Committee also recommended shifting of the permanent municipal employees, who are currently residing in the Colony to the quarters that have been constructed. Further, we will request the other residents residing in the Colony to shift to the designated locations.”
CM Sangma also laid down plans of the Meghalaya government in which he said, “The process of signing the tripartite agreement & taking possession of the land by the Govt in Urban Affairs Dept. from the Syiem of Mylliem has started and the whole process should be completed by next week.”
1. The process of signing the tripartite agreement & taking possession of the land by the Govt in Urban Affairs Dept. from the Syiem of Mylliem has started and the whole process should be completed by next week.
— Conrad Sangma (@SangmaConrad) October 7, 2021
According to reports, the Meghalaya government has been trying to evict the Dalit Sikh community from the Them lew Mawlong area in Shillong for a long time now. The land laws of Meghalaya on the other hand states that neither the state nor the Shillong Municipal Board have any right over the land that belonged to the Sikhs of the Harijan Colony, also known as Sweepers’ Colony in Shillong. Also, the state government had previously failed in its attempts to remove the Sikhs as the control of the land in question lied with the traditional Khasi chieftain known as Syiem.
To resolve this, the process to transfer the ownership of the land from the local tribal chieftain (syiem) to the state has been started so that the government has been started so that steps to evict Sikhs from the area can be taken. The High-Level Committee was set up in 2018 to settle the land dispute.
Around 350 Sikh families live in the area, where they have been living for over two centuries. They claim that the land was donated by a Khasi tribal chieftain to them before 1863. However, the tribal communities in Meghalaya consider them as outsiders, and want to evict them from the heart of the capital city.
