The threat is real. The threat is open. The threat is there for every­one to read on www.syl­lad.com. To­day, 9 June 2019, the HNLC -Hyn­niewtrep Na­tional Lib­er­a­tion Coun­cil, has is­sued a state­ment cat­e­gor­i­cally stat­ing that the res­i­dents of Pun­jabi lane, Shil­long must be re­lo­cated oth­er­wise they should be pre­pared to face bul­lets. Shil­long Sikhs seek the im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion of the Sikh com­mu­nity, Sikh bod­ies and na­tional hu­man rights and mi­nori­ties’ gov­ern­men­tal and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Ask­ing the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya to ig­nore the con­tempt no­tice sent by the Sikhs and other res­i­dents of the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee to the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board which has asked for res­i­den­tial doc­u­men­ta­tion within a month, the mil­i­tant out­fit HNLC-Hyn­niewtrep Na­tional Lib­er­a­tion Coun­cil has is­sued a di­rect threat to kill poor Sikhs who re­side in the Pun­jabi lane area of Shil­long.

Post­ing the threat on the web­site www.syl­lad.com, the HNLC threat reads, “The HNLC will re­peat his­tory again, there will be many more Lals (a ref­er­ence to one Lal Singh who was killed in 1995 by the HNLC) in the Har­i­jan com­mu­nity. We have the sup­port of our peo­ple and we don’t mind tak­ing mil­i­tary ac­tion. This is not only a warn­ing when it comes to pro­tect­ing the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple, but they shall also press the trig­ger and their peo­ple will fall to our bul­lets.”

HNLC and other mil­i­tant or­gan­i­sa­tions rep­re­sent­ing tribal in­ter­ests claim that they are the orig­i­nal in­hab­i­tants of Megha­laya and all out­siders need to be thrown out of the state. This body was pro­scribed in the year 2000, but the ban was soon lifted. The HNL­C’s prime ob­jec­tive is “to trans­form Megha­laya as a province ex­clu­sively for the Khasi tribe and free it from the dom­i­na­tion of the Garo tribe as well as to fight against the pres­ence of ‘out­siders’ in Megha­laya.

The Sikh res­i­dents of Pun­jabi lane, also deroga­to­rily called Sweep­ers Colony or its lo­cal name –Them Metor, since May 31, 2018, are reel­ing un­der the threat of the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board and the state-formed High-Level Com­mit­tee un­der the chair­man­ship of the Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Pre­stone Tyn­song. The High-level com­mit­tee of the Gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya has been is­su­ing state­ments and no­tices through the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board seek­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion of res­i­dence sta­tus from res­i­dents of the Pun­jabi lane as well as forc­ing an in­ven­tory of the houses.

On the other hand, the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee led by Gur­jit Singh has been run­ning from pil­lar to post -from the High Court of Megha­laya to the Na­tional Mi­nori­ties Com­mis­sion, to the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion, to Sikh bod­ies -SGPC and DS­GMC to seek sup­port and pro­tec­tion of the poor­est of poor Sikhs of the area.

It ap­pears that the pre­sent provo­ca­tion by the mil­i­tant body HNLC is the re­sult of the con­tempt no­tice which the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee has launched against the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board, which pasted fresh no­tices on 31 May 2019, on 300 houses of the said area, in clear vi­o­la­tion of the or­ders of the Megha­laya High Court, the NCM and the NHRC, which have all in var­i­ous or­ders “re­strained the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board and the High-Level Com­mit­tee of the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment to main­tain sta­tus quo ante and not dis­turb the res­i­dents for re­lo­ca­tion in any man­ner what­so­ever. ”

The HNLC threat seems to be a well-thought plan of the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board, the High-level Com­mit­tee and the mil­i­tant body. These words in the threat area a clear in­di­ca­tion of that com­plic­ity:  “The HNLC has viewed the re­cent dead­line given by the Har­i­jan pan­chayat to the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal and gov­ern­ment sounded more like a warn­ing sig­nal. This is­sue has been crop­ping up for the last three decades and we have not seen any so­lu­tion so far. The gov­ern­ment should not soften its stance, as this kind of warn­ing is a warn­ing to the ‘Jaid­byn­riew’ (for the pro­tec­tion of our own com­mu­nity.)”

Re­fer­ring to the killing of a Sikh ac­tivist Lal Singh in 1995 by the HNLC, the threat note makes its in­ten­tions clear by warn­ing, “This is a se­ri­ous mat­ter, and the CM should take ac­tion to bring a so­lu­tion. If the Har­i­jan pan­chayat com­mit­tee still chal­lenges then we shall have to re­sort to other means for a so­lu­tion. They may re­main un­der the pro­tec­tion of se­cu­rity forces in Shil­long. But they should not for­get that their com­mu­nity is pre­sent in Khasi and Jain­tia hills. If they pro­voke, we will be com­pelled to at­tack their com­mu­nity with­out fail. Then the Har­i­jan pan­chayat com­mit­tee will shoul­der the re­spon­si­bil­ity if any lives are lost.”

Gur­jit Singh speak­ing on the phone line from Shil­long told The World Sikh News, “This threat to our lives is real. For the last year, we have had sleep­less nights. We have con­tested for our fun­da­men­tal rights in courts and gov­ern­ment fo­rums.” Talk­ing about his ef­forts within the Sikh com­mu­nity, he said, “We are grate­ful to the SGPC, the DS­GMC, the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment, Khalsa Aid, Singh Sabha Mum­bai, United Sikhs and other Sikh or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als who have sup­ported us over the last one year. How­ever, now we are in a more dif­fi­cult po­si­tion than ever be­fore. These mil­i­tant bod­ies and the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya are in a se­ri­ous mood to kill us to achieve their mo­tive of re­lo­cat­ing us so that they can get hold of this area.”

When asked as to what Sikh lead­ers and or­gan­i­sa­tions can do, Gur­jit Singh told WSN, “Please visit us. Please send Jathas for our sup­port.”

The HNLC has also said in the threat note that, “We can­not claim their land in Pun­jab and they do not have the right to stake claims over our land.” They have also told the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya that “The in­ter­fer­ence of the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment and its politi­cians time and again should not be en­ter­tained.”

I seek kind at­ten­tion of @Amit­Shah Ji to­wards this sen­si­tive mat­ter where Pun­jabis are forced to live un­der the shadow of fear in Shil­long

HNLC, an ex­trem­ist Or­ga­ni­za­tion is is­su­ing open warn­ing to Pun­jabis. Im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion of @HMOIn­dia re­quested in the mat­ter @ANI https://​t.co/​ph6d­v61Gwo

— Man­jin­der S Sirsa (@mssirsa) June 9, 2019

The World Sikh News learns that the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, which has been pro­vid­ing all le­gal as­sis­tance to the Sikh res­i­dents of Pun­jabi lane in Shil­long for a long time is seized with the mat­ter and is likely to take up this re­cent dan­ger­ous threat to the high­est lev­els in the Modi gov­ern­ment.  In a se­ries of tweets DS­GMC pres­i­dent Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa has taken up the mat­ter with the In­dian Home Min­is­ter Amit Shah and the Megha­laya Chief Min­is­ter Con­rad Sangma.

Will, the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment take ac­tion against the HNLC? Will the Min­istry of Home Af­fairs of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia take up the mat­ter im­me­di­ately with the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment?

The World Sikh News main­tains that in­ter­ven­tion by the Sikh com­mu­nity at all lev­els for the pro­tec­tion of the poor Sikhs at all lev­els is the need of the hour. It is now or never!