While the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya wants to dis­lo­cate and throw out Sikh res­i­dents from the Pun­jabi lane area of Shil­long, in yet an­other re­prieve, the High Court at Megha­laya has re­frained the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board from tak­ing any ac­tion on the un­law­ful no­tice served on the poor Sikh res­i­dents through news­pa­pers.

Hear­ing the case of re­lo­ca­tion (read dis­lo­ca­tion) of poor Sikh res­i­dents, liv­ing in the Pun­jabi lane area of Shil­long for more than two hun­dred years, the Megha­laya High Court has asked the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board to re­frain from tak­ing any ac­tion pur­suant to their pub­lic no­tice till the next date of hear­ing 20 De­cem­ber 2018.

Ap­pear­ing on be­half of the pe­ti­tion­ers -the Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee -of­fi­cially called the Har­i­jan Com­mit­tee, Ad­vo­cates Nagin­der Beni­pal and Harpreet Singh Hora sub­mit­ted that at the last hear­ing, the court had di­rected that peace be main­tained in the area, and that in or­der to pres­sur­ize the res­i­dents of the area, the gov­ern­ment through the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board had asked the poor Sikh res­i­dents to sub­mit their land records through a pub­lic no­tice pub­lished in news­pa­pers on 26 No­vem­ber 2018.

“The last para of the un­law­ful pub­lic no­tice says that, “if this in­for­ma­tion is not fur­nished in 15 days af­ter which no claim would be en­ter­tained and every­one would be dealt as per law.” 200 plus years of res­i­dency is to be de­cided in 15 days!  ”

Ad­vo­cates Nagin­der Beni­pal and Harpreet Singh HoraAs one can see in the im­age pro­vided here, the tone of the pub­lic no­tice is noth­ing but threat­en­ing and based on the as­sump­tion that all those stay­ing in the Pun­jabi lane, re­ferred to as Sweep­ers’ Colony are il­le­gal. One para reads, “In view to es­tab­lish the fac­tual po­si­tion as to the num­ber of res­i­dents/​per­sons oc­cu­py­ing this pub­lic land, an op­por­tu­nity is given to come for­ward and re­port to the )des­ig­nated of­fice of­fice SMB) as to their oc­cu­pa­tion and years they have been in oc­cu­pa­tion, na­ture of oc­cu­pa­tion, etc.” The last para asks that this in­for­ma­tion be fur­nished in 15 days af­ter which no claim would be en­ter­tained and every­one would be dealt as per law. 200 plus years of res­i­dency is to be de­cided in 15 days!

“The Com­mit­tee is in the process of iden­ti­fy­ing some al­ter­nate place to shift the of­fice of the mu­nic­i­pal board to ac­com­mo­date its staff liv­ing in Har­i­jan Colony.  ”

Renek­ton Lyn­g­doh Tongkhar

Ad­vo­cates Nagin­der Beni­pal and Harpreet Singh HoraThe sin­gle-bench court of Jus­tice S R Sen took cog­nizance of the com­plaint of the pe­ti­tion­ers and asked them to make a spe­cific ap­pli­ca­tion for the same.  It may also be men­tioned that since the last 6 months, while the court pro­ceed­ings are on, all the re­spon­dent par­ties have failed to file any re­ply of any kind whereas the Deputy Chief Min­is­ter and other tribal lead­ers are con­tin­u­ing to over­awe the Sikhs through me­dia state­ments as well as il­le­gal or­ders and un­law­ful searches of Sikh homes.

Megha­laya Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Pre­stone Tyn­song, af­ter the fifth meet­ing of the High Level Com­mit­tee on re­lo­ca­tion of Har­i­jan res­i­dents had an­nounced that the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board had is­sued no­tices and that all de­part­ments would meet soon to con­clude the mat­ter. He is re­ported to have said to a sec­tion of the me­dia that, “Our only re­quest to the res­i­dents of the Har­i­jan Colony is to go to the Mu­nic­i­pal Board with your pa­pers and doc­u­ments as you still have time and we have given you enough time. There are al­to­gether 184 em­ploy­ees who are stay­ing in Har­i­jan Colony and which in­clude 128 from the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board and 56 from other de­part­ments.”

The per­ni­cious game of the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya as re­gards the Sikhs there was spilled out by an­other mem­ber of the High Level Com­mit­tee. Renek­ton Lyn­g­doh Tongkhar told the me­dia that, “The Com­mit­tee is in the process of iden­ti­fy­ing some al­ter­nate place to shift the of­fice of the mu­nic­i­pal board to ac­com­mo­date its staff liv­ing in Har­i­jan Colony.” The game is to shift the of­fice of the cor­po­ra­tion and with it ask the Sikhs work­ing in the cor­po­ra­tion to shift there.

“I wel­come the or­der of the High Court stop­ping the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board.  ”

Gur­jit Singh, Pres­i­dent, City Gur­d­wara, Shil­long

City Gur­d­wara Pres­i­dent Gur­jit Singh meets Na­tional Mi­nori­ties Com­mit­tee mem­ber Man­jit Singh Rai The last meet­ing of the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties on this is­sue was on 12 Sep­tem­ber. Since then no meet­ing has been sched­uled.  There is a sta­tus quo ante or­der by the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties and the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion, de­spite that the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment is not stop­ping its pres­sure tac­tics and un­law­ful or­ders.  In or­der to im­press upon the NCM to take up the is­sue again, Gur­jit Singh re­cently met Man­jit Singh Rai, the Sikh mem­ber of the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties.

Gur­jit Singh who has been spear­head­ing the strug­gle on be­half of the hun­dreds of poor res­i­dents is dis­traught. Speak­ing to the World Sikh News, he said, “I wel­come the or­der of the High Court stop­ping the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board. I must add that we are scared that the state agen­cies con­tinue their un­law­ful acts not car­ing for the or­ders of the High Court of Megha­laya or the stay granted by the Mi­nori­ties Com­mis­sion and the Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion.”

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