When Megha­laya Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Pre­stone Tyn­song is­sued a veiled threat to­day to the poor Shil­long Sikhs re­sid­ing in the Pun­jabi lane area, also known as Sweep­ers’ Colony, the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee re­tal­i­ated say­ing that they will not be cowed down with un­law­ful threats.  This leader, who heads the gov­ern­ment-formed High-level Com­mit­tee, has been go­ing ham­mer and tongs against the poor Shil­long Sikhs since the last one year and has is­sued umpteen state­ments against the poor Sikhs and chal­lenged all doc­u­men­ta­tion in their favour. 

HAR­I­JAN Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee of the Shil­long Sikhs res­i­dent in Pun­jabi lane for the last 200 years cat­e­gor­i­cally re­jected the sug­ges­tion of the Megha­laya Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Pre­stone Tyn­song who, through a me­dia brief­ing has asked  Pun­jabi and Sikh set­tlers to con­sider shift­ing on their own from the Sweep­er’s Colony.

In a hard-hit­ting state­ment, the Pres­i­dent of the Com­mit­tee Billu Singh said, “It is shock­ing to read that he has said that the res­i­dents of Har­i­jan Colony must them­selves leave the place.” This is a veiled po­lite threat and we re­ject it in toto.  We will not be cowed down like this. We are cit­i­zens of the state for the last two cen­turies and we can­not be bul­lied. We have le­git­i­mate rights and we will con­test for those rights.

Mil­i­tant-sup­ported syl­lad.com to­day re­ported the state­ment of the State’s Deputy Chief Min­is­ter say­ing, “It is good that they (il­le­gal set­tlers) shift by them­selves. I re­quest those who do not have proper pa­pers it is good to leave the place and find out al­ter­na­tives. If you have a bet­ter place please shift if you don’t have a bet­ter place be ready to have a bet­ter place or shift from that place.”

Speak­ing to The World Sikh News Gur­jit Singh said, “The Deputy CM is mis­lead­ing the peo­ple of the state by quot­ing only one par­tial or­der of the High Court. The Deputy Chief Min­is­ter must know that the case is far from over.  The le­gal bat­tle is far from over. The or­der of Feb­ru­ary 2019 still stands and as the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya has gone in ap­peal, it has been listed for 22 Au­gust 2019.”

“The Gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya has to con­tend an­other case filed by Billu Singh wherein the evic­tion (called in­ven­tori­sa­tion, seek­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion of res­i­dency) no­tices pasted on 31 May have been chal­lenged. This too would come up on 22 Au­gust. 2019,” he added.

“It is good that they (il­le­gal set­tlers) shift by them­selves. I re­quest those who do not have proper pa­pers it is good to leave the place and find out al­ter­na­tives. If you have a bet­ter place please shift if you don’t have a bet­ter place be ready to have a bet­ter place or shift from that place.” 

Pre­stone Tyn­g­son, Deputy CM, Megha­laya

Gur­jeet Singh who par­tic­i­pated in a meet­ing which the Union Min­is­ter Har­sim­rat Kaur Badal had with the Megha­laya CM Con­rad Sangma in New Delhi a few days back, said,  “Dur­ing the Delhi meet­ing be­tween Union Min­is­ter Har­sim­rat Kaur Badal and the Chief Min­is­ter of Megha­laya Con­rad Sangma, the Deputy Chief Min­is­ter pre­ferred to stay away as he could not face truth.”

The Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee and the City Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee while cat­e­gor­i­cally re­ject­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s High-Level Com­mit­tee, have stated that the HLC has been work­ing in a par­ti­san man­ner with­out tak­ing the view­point of the af­fected peo­ple of the Pun­jabi lane.

Billu Singh in a strong note men­tioned in the press state­ment that, “We re­ject the High-Level Com­mit­tee and we will re­ject all the de­ci­sions that the HLC takes to­mor­row or in fu­ture. The HLC has no lo­cus-standi and is work­ing only to evict the poor Sikh res­i­dents of Pun­jabi colony who are liv­ing here for the last 200 years and who have im­mensely served the peo­ple of the state.”

It may be noted that the Deputy CM is tak­ing refuge be­hind a Megha­laya High Court which is not yet a fi­nal or­der. The Megha­laya High Court in its or­der passed on June 28, while hear­ing a re­view pe­ti­tion filed by the state gov­ern­ment on the is­sue had stated: “How­ever, it is di­rected that the oc­cu­pants/​res­i­dents of the con­cerned area shall co­op­er­ate in fur­nish­ing the req­ui­site in­for­ma­tion to the State.” The last line of the or­der is sig­nif­i­cant where the judge says that “for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tions to come up on 28.08.2019.” The Deputy CM is only cit­ing that part which suits the gov­ern­ment and the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board.

The World Sikh News un­der­stands that the or­der passed by the High Court of Megha­laya is un­ten­able be­cause when an ap­peal is un­der con­sid­er­a­tion, the High Court can­not pass an or­der on the re­view pe­ti­tion.  It is also learnt that the coun­sels of the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee are con­tem­plat­ing to seek a mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the or­der which the Deputy CM is tout­ing about.  The coun­sels have also pointed out that the very no­tice which is part of the pe­ti­tion is also to be taken up by the court on 22 Au­gust 2019.

“We re­ject the High-Level Com­mit­tee and we will re­ject all the de­ci­sions that the HLC takes to­mor­row or in fu­ture. The HLC has no lo­cus-standi and is work­ing only to evict the poor Sikh res­i­dents of Pun­jabi colony who are liv­ing here for the last 200 years and who have im­mensely served the peo­ple of the state.”

Billu Singh, Pres­i­dent, Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee, Shil­long

Gur­jit Singh fur­ther pointed out that, “The Deputy Chief Min­is­ter and the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board have failed to re­alise that in the con­tempt or­der which our coun­sels did not press, the Court has given us the priv­i­lege to file for con­tempt again should the SMB or the HLC ini­ti­ate any fur­ther il­le­gal pro­ceed­ings. More­over, in the re­ply of the Con­tempt ap­pli­ca­tion, the SMB or the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya has not re­sponded to the fourth pe­ti­tion­er’s case wherein a res­i­dent has been asked to va­cate her res­i­dence in the Har­i­jan Colony.”

The Sikh world has to take a clear note that the Gov­ern­ment is hell-bent to claim the land as their own and throw out the Sikhs from their habi­tat. This leader of the State has many a time con­demned the in­ter­est shown by Sikh lead­er­ship and Pun­jab gov­ern­ment lead­er­ship. He re­peated this yes­ter­day also. Much more needs to be done at this stage to save the life and habi­tat of the poor Shil­long Sikhs.

All the de­tails and doc­u­men­ta­tion of the fam­i­lies who are res­i­dents of Har­i­jan Colony that the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board re­quires is part of the pe­ti­tion that was filed in 2018. In June 2018, the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board has al­ready con­ducted the in­ven­tory process. The de­tails of fam­i­lies work­ing with SMB and those work­ing with other State and Union gov­ern­ments have been pub­lished many times through pub­lic no­tices in news­pa­pers.  The de­c­la­ra­tion of 2008 by the Syiem of Milleium, which has recog­nised our pres­ence and set­tle­ment and Pat­tas have been given to var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions, is also part of the pe­ti­tion.

The Sikh world has to take a clear note that the Gov­ern­ment is hell-bent to claim the land as their own and throw out the Sikhs from their habi­tat. This leader of the State has many a time con­demned the in­ter­est shown by Sikh lead­er­ship and Pun­jab gov­ern­ment lead­er­ship. He re­peated this yes­ter­day also. Much more needs to be done at this stage to save the life and habi­tat of the poor Shil­long Sikhs. 

We have not been able to live our nor­mal lives for decades, and the last year has been a hell of a roller­coaster ride in our lives, said Gur­jit Singh. How many times will the SMB and HLC ha­rass us and ask for doc­u­ments of own­er­ship?  The HLC says that they are only ad­vi­sory and they need not act upon any as­pect, then why they are act­ing so im­mensely to dis­pos­sess the lo­cal res­i­dents of Pun­jabi Colony?

The Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee is clear that the nei­ther the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board nor any de­part­ment of the Gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya has any doc­u­ment to prove that they are the le­gal own­ers of the land on which the poor res­i­dents live.

“There are many Com­mis­sions and that is their view only but it is up to the state gov­ern­ment (to de­cide).”

Pre­stone Tyn­g­song, Deputy CM Megha­laya, rub­bish­ing the sug­ges­tion of the Na­tional Safai Karam­chari Com­mis­sion against re­lo­ca­tion of Shil­long Sikhs.

Just two days ago, Ja­gadish Hera­mani -a mem­ber of the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties, dur­ing his visit to Shil­long, cat­e­gor­i­cally told the me­dia that the Com­mis­sion is against the re­lo­ca­tion of the Shil­long Sikhs and that the Com­mis­sion would for­mally ad­vise the gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya in this re­gard. The Deputy Chief Min­is­ter mocked at the above sug­ges­tion and stated, “There are many Com­mis­sions and that is their view only but it is up to the state gov­ern­ment (to de­cide).” Re­act­ing to this, Gur­jit Singh said, “This is an in­sult of the Com­mis­sion and the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee will rep­re­sent to the Com­mis­sion ac­cord­ingly.”

The Deputy CM has re­port­edly stated to the me­dia that, “Time and again I have re­quested them do not en­gage your­self by go­ing here and there as the gov­ern­ment is your pro­tec­tor and that gov­ern­ment is not your en­emy.” If you read be­tween the lines, this is a veiled threat.

Speak­ing for the res­i­dents, Gur­jit Singh said, “The HLC and the Deputy CM has been act­ing like an en­emy and is­su­ing threats every now and then through the me­dia.”

The Deputy CM in his state­ment has fur­ther said that had these Sikhs be liv­ing in other states, they would have been evicted by now. What the Deputy CM has failed to note that had it been any other state, the Har­i­jan Colony would have long back been recog­nised as be­long­ing to the set­tlers.

Nail­ing all friv­o­lous ar­gu­ments of the Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Pre­stone Tyn­song, the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat has un­am­bigu­ously stated,  “It is thus clear that the only vi­sion of the de­part­ments is to get the long re­sid­ing res­i­dents of Bara Bazaar dis­pos­sessed and the Sweep­ers colony be va­cated with­out any due pro­ce­dure of law. The Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee is com­mit­ted to pro­tect and fight for its le­git­i­mate rights till its last breath.”