Respond­ing to the threat­en­ing calls to kill them by the mil­i­tant or­gan­i­sa­tion HNLC, the poor Sikh res­i­dents of Pun­jabi lane, Shil­long dashed off an SOS let­ter to Con­rad Sangma -Chief Min­is­ter of Megha­laya seek­ing his gov­ern­men­t’s im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion to pro­tect the fun­da­men­tal rights of the res­i­dents of the place.  The Sikh res­i­dents are de­ter­mined to pro­tect the res­i­dents of the so-called Sweep­ers Colony, who have set­tled there for more than 200 years -who were in­vited by the British In­dian army and who were given land by the then King of the area.

TAK­ING note of the highly provoca­tive, threat­en­ing call of the HNLC to kill poor res­i­dents of Pun­jabi lane in Shil­long, the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee has writ­ten to Megha­laya Chief Min­is­ter Con­rad Sangma, seek­ing his im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion by pro­vid­ing se­cu­rity and pro­tec­tion to the res­i­dents of the area.

Gur­jit Singh of the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee cat­e­gor­i­cally stated that “we are only pro­tect­ing the le­git­i­mate fun­da­men­tal rights of the peo­ple of the Pun­jabi lane area.”

The HNLC threat reads, “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.”

The Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee be­lieves that it is an at­tempt by the HNLC to stop them from ini­ti­at­ing con­tempt pro­ceed­ings against the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board which has is­sued no­tices even though there is a stay by the High Court, the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties and the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion.

Banned mil­i­tant out­fit HNLC openly threat­ens to kill Shil­long Sikhs

The let­ter to the Chief Min­is­ter states that “the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board is de­lib­er­ately ha­rass­ing the Sikhs and other res­i­dents of the area. The Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board has all the de­tails that it wants from the area. They have done a sur­vey of the area a year ago. More than 70 per cent of the res­i­dents of the area are the em­ploy­ees of SMB.  More­over, if they want any more de­tails that they re­quire can eas­ily gather from de­tails of the power con­nec­tions, vot­ers list and ra­tion cards.”

The Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee leader Gur­jit Singh has said that “The HNLC is mis­lead­ing the peo­ple of the state through false pro­pa­ganda. Our colony has peo­ple of all re­li­gions and gen­er­a­tion af­ter gen­er­a­tion, we are set­tled here for more than 200 years. We are not out­siders.  We are poor, hard-work­ing peo­ple and the al­le­ga­tion of a rich, lav­ish lifestyle by HNLC is hog­wash.”

He fur­ther added that “there was to­tal peace in the area and there has been no anti-so­cial ac­tiv­ity or crim­i­nal ac­tiv­ity by res­i­dents of the area. A quick re­view of the cases at the lo­cal po­lice sta­tion will show that the res­i­dents of the area are peace-lov­ing peo­ple and the al­le­ga­tions of HNLC are mere in­sin­u­a­tions against us.”

The poor Har­i­jans of the Pun­jabi lane area are res­i­dents of the place since they were in­vited by the British army some 200 years ago. Even prior to 1863 the Syiem of Myl­liem -the tra­di­tional king of the place al­lot­ted them the place and this was af­firmed by a de­c­la­ra­tion by the pre­sent King in 2008.  The Sikh set­tlers have ad­e­quate doc­u­men­ta­tion to prove this.

We ap­peal to all right-think­ing peo­ple, hu­man rights ac­tivists and or­gan­i­sa­tions to raise voice in our favour and cre­ate a cli­mate of peace in the re­gion.

The Sikh res­i­dents of the area have ap­pealed to the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee, Am­rit­sar, the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee and the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment to re­spond to their call for as­sis­tance and pro­tec­tion.

The poor Har­i­jans of the Pun­jabi lane area are res­i­dents of the place since they were in­vited by the British army some 200 years ago. Even prior to 1863 the Syiem of Myl­liem -the tra­di­tional king of the place al­lot­ted them the place and this was af­firmed by a de­c­la­ra­tion by the pre­sent King in 2008. 

We have fam­ily and so­cial con­tacts with the peo­ple of Pun­jab and there­fore if so­cial and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers come for­ward to help us there is noth­ing wrong in that and the HNLC should not worry about the in­ter­ven­tion of Pun­jabis at large.

ਹਰੀਜਨ ਪੰਚਾਇਤ ਕਮੇਟੀ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਲੇਨ ਸ਼ਿਲੌਂਗ ਦੇ ਲੋਕਾਂ ਦੇ ਬੁਨਿਆਦੀ ਹੱਕਾਂ ਲਈ ਲੜਨ ਦਾ ਪੱਕਾ ਆਇਦ

Coun­ter­ing the claim of HNLC which said that they are not seek­ing land in Pun­jab, the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee re­torted by say­ing, “Sikhs have a large heart and we will be happy to re­quest Sikhs in Pun­jab to help peo­ple from this re­gion to set­tle there in case some­one chooses too.”

In a me­dia state­ment, DS­GMC Pres­i­dent Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa has said that the DS­GMC takes a se­ri­ous note of the threat to the Sikhs in Shil­long by the banned mil­i­tant out­fit HNLC and has urged the gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene at the ear­li­est.