As the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya, the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board, the Au­tonomous Hill Coun­cil and oth­ers have failed to file their replies to the pe­ti­tion of the City Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee seek­ing or­ders from the court for no re­lo­ca­tion of the Sikhs from their pre­sent habi­tat, the sin­gle bench of Judge S. R. Sen of the Shil­long High Court has di­rected the gov­ern­ment to main­tain peace through an or­der on 1 No­vem­ber 2018 and has asked the re­spon­dent par­ties to file their replies within four weeks.

Fur­ther­more the High Court of Megha­laya has passed a di­rec­tive that peace should be main­tained in the area of the Pun­jabi Colony and the Deputy Com­mis­sioner of the East Khasi Hills area P S Dkhar was di­rected to en­sure that there is no un­to­ward in­ci­dent of any kind. The Deputy Com­mis­sioner has ap­prised the me­dia that the mag­is­te­r­ial en­quiry re­port in the 31 May vi­o­lence ear­lier this year has been sub­mit­ted to the gov­ern­men­t’s High Level com­mit­tee and that they would take the next step.  

Speak­ing ex­clu­sively on the phone line from Shil­long to this re­porter, Pres­i­dent of the City Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee said, “We have a sta­tus-quo or­der from the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties and a “main­tain peace” or­der from the High Court. We hope that the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya’s High Level Com­mit­tee will not take any il­le­gal and anti-peo­ple step.” 

“Shil­long is our home for the last two cen­turies and we are com­mit­ted to live here in peace and co­op­er­a­tion with all com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing the lo­cal tribes. We are at­tached to this land. We will live up to the Sikh ideals of broth­er­hood of man and fa­ther­hood of God and al­ways pray and work for Sar­bat da Bhala -wel­fare of all hu­mankind,” said Gur­jeet Singh when asked about why they in­sist on liv­ing in the Pun­jabi lane area.  

Mean­while, the East Khasi Hills SP Davis Marak has told the me­dia that vigil would be main­tained and traf­fic re­stric­tions will be in place to avoid any dis­tur­bance to peace in the re­gion. 

Shil­long, 4 No­vem­ber 2018, WSN News Bu­reau