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Evidences favouring Sikhs frustrates Meghalaya government’s eviction plan

According to the land laws prevailing in Meghalaya, the state govt or any of its agencies do not have any right over this land

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Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Kolkata, June 26

In what is being seen as a confirmation of the strong legal position of the Shillong Sikhs regarding their residence in the city’s Harijan Colony neighbourhood, Meghalaya Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong, who is heading the High-level Committee (HLC) set up by the state government to relocate the Sikh residents from Harijan Colony, has admitted that the matter was a complex one.

Tynsong recently told journalists at Shillong that the Harijan Colony issue, especially the land question, was far from simple.

“All evidence is in our favour and because of this we always got relief from the court also whenever we knocked the door of the judiciary to seek protection from state government’s attempt to drive us away from the locality where we have been living for generations,” Gurjit Singh, leader and spokesman of Shillong’s Harijan Colony Sikhs, told this reporter over the phone.

The High-Level Committee (HLC), constituted by the state government in June 2018 for relocating the Harijan Colony residents, formed a sub-committee under urban affairs minister Hanmletson Dohling to assist it.

The main job entrusted to the sub-committee is to examine and try to resolve differences between the traditional Khasi institution ‘Hima Mylliem’ and the state government over the land (Harijan Colony).

The land was given to the ancestors of the current residents of the colony by the then tribal chief of the area. According to the land laws prevailing in Meghalaya, the state government or any of its agencies, including the Shillong Municipal Board (SMB), do not have any right over this land.

Plenty of attempts have been made by the state government from time to time to evict the residents of Harijan Colony which is located close to Shillong’s two prime commercial districts – Police Bazaar and Burra Bazaar. However, all attempts had come undone in the court.

According to Gurjit Singh, Dalit Sikhs from Gurdaspur in Punjab were allotted the land by the local Khasi tribal chief back in the middle of the 19th century.

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

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