Report on relocation of Shillong Sikhs today

Kolkata, August 27

A sub-committee, headed by Meghalaya Urban Affairs Minister Hamletson Dohling, will submit its report on Friday to a high-level committee constituted by the state government to suggest measures for relocating the Sikh residents of the area. The issue has raised hackles in Punjab, with the Congress-led government sending a delegation to Shillong last year to take up the matter with the authorities.

The Punjab Government’s step was preceded by a visit to Shillong by an SGPC team which had urged Meghalaya Home Minister James Sangma to stop the attempts to “relocate” the Sikh residents of the Harijan Colony.

Dohling-led sub-committee was set up by Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong, chief of the high-level committee, to take up the matter with the Hima Mylliem, a traditional Khasi tribal institution.

Gurjit Singh, chief of Harijan Panchayat Committee, said the land in question was granted to the ancestors of the current residents by the then tribal chief of the area more than 150 years ago. So far, the courts have always upheld the rights of the Sikhs over the area. — TNS