Meghalaya panel for relocation of Shillong Sikhs to submit report on Friday

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Kolkata, August 27

Meghalaya government’s latest attempt to evict Dalit Sikhs from Harijan Colony located at the heart of state capital Shillong is all set to gain fresh momentum on Friday when a sub-committee headed by urban affairs minister Hamletson Dohling will submit its report to the High-Level committee formed by the state government to suggest measures for relocating the Sikh residents of the area.

The issue has raised heckles in Punjab with the Congress-led state government sending a delegation to Shillong last year under minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa to take up the matter with Meghalaya authorities.

The Punjab government step was preceded by a visit to Shillong by a SGPC team from Amritsar who met Meghalaya Home Minister James Sangma and urged him to stop the attempts being made to “relocate” the Sikh residents of Harijan Colony.

Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong, chief of the High-Level Committee (HLC), set up the sub-committee under Dohling to take up with the “Hima Mylliem”, a traditional Khasi tribal institution, the issue of the land inhabited by the Harijan Colony residents.

The National People’s Party (NPP)-led government of Meghalaya, which enjoys support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had constituted the High-Level Committee in June 2018.

Receipt of the report from Dohling-led sub-committee is expected to be followed by the HLC submitting its recommendations to the state government without further delay.

According to Gurjit Singh, chief of Harijan Panchayat Committee and a spokesman of the Dalit Sikhs of Shillong’s Harijan Colony, the land in question was granted to a group of people (ancestors of the current residents) by the then tribal chief of the area more than 150 years back.

Disregarding the history of the settlement, the Shillong Municipal Board and other official agencies are now asking for proof of individual ownership of the plots and ramshackle structures used by the Dalit Sikhs as residences. “This is foolish”, says Gurjit Singh.

So far the courts have always upheld the Sikhs’ right over the area. This has prompted the state government to approach the “Hima Mylliem” and explore ways to revoke the order by the then tribal chief granting the land to the Dalit Sikhs more than one and a half century back.

Located close to Shillong’s two prime commercial districts – Police Bazaar and Burra Bazaaar – the area constituting Harijan Colony has immense potential for development as a top of the line business district. 

According to Gurjit Singh, the ancestors of Dalit Sikhs living in the colony had come primarily from Gurdaspur area of Punjab.

Violent tactics to intimidate the residents including threat by a terror group, preceded by a mob attack and even the murder of one Lal Singh in 1995 by thugs masquerading as Khasi protesters had failed to drive away the Sikhs from Shillong’s Harijan Colony.