“No gov­ern­ment au­thor­ity can evict us from our homes which were nur­tured by our fore­fa­thers.”
“We will live and die in Pun­jabi Lane.”
“Our Homes are our Right.”
“The gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya is vi­o­lat­ing our con­sti­tu­tional and fun­da­men­tal rights.”
“We are de­ter­mined to con­tinue our peace­ful strug­gle for our home and sur­vival.”
These and other sen­ti­ments were ex­pressed by the res­i­dents of the Pun­jabi Colony at an emer­gency meet­ing held on Sun­day to re­view the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the gov­ern­ment an­nounce­ment to evict them fol­low­ing the trans­fer of the land to the Ur­ban Af­fairs De­part­ment. WSN re­ports.

The Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee and the devo­tees of Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak Dar­bar, the Hindu Tem­ples and the Church of North In­dia -all lo­cated in the area cat­e­gor­i­cally de­clared in their Sun­day meet­ing, “we will die in our homes here rather than be forcibly evicted.” They said this in re­sponse to the state­ment of the Megha­laya Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Pre­stone Tyn­song, two days ago, in which he had an­nounced that a sum of Ru­pees Twenty mil­lion has been paid to the Syiem of Hima Myl­liem, whereby the Har­i­jan Colony now be­longs to the Ur­ban Af­fairs De­part­ment and the said de­part­ment will beau­tify the area “in its own wis­dom”.

The state­ment is­sued by Gur­jit Singh, sec­re­tary of the Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee, rep­re­sent­ing the con­cerns of some 300 fam­i­lies reads, “We have ex­am­ined the lat­est de­vel­op­ments and let me say with all the au­thor­ity at my com­mand that we will give sleep­less nights to the gov­ern­ment. The as­sur­ances of the gov­ern­ment do not cut ice, in fact, they are full of loop­holes and ob­fus­ca­tion of facts and fig­ures.  Let it be known to all con­cerned that this is a fight for our sur­vival and habi­tat and we will spare no ef­fort to win this bat­tle of ho­n­our, dig­nity and le­git­i­mate rights.” 

Set­ting the tone for their anger and angst against the gov­ern­ment, the res­i­dents in their first res­o­lu­tion, stated that, “The tri­par­tite agree­ment be­tween the Gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya, the Act­ing Syiem of Hima Myl­liem and the Shil­long Mu­nic­i­pal Board is patently il­le­gal, malafide and a clear vi­o­la­tion of the con­sti­tu­tional and fun­da­men­tal rights of the res­i­dents of Pun­jabi Lane, whose fore­fa­thers came here some 200 years ago and who have served Megha­laya hon­estly and dili­gently do­ing man­ual scav­eng­ing and other me­nial tasks.”

“It is ironic that in­stead of ac­knowl­edg­ing the work of our peo­ple, the thank­less gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya and some groups are hell-bent on throw­ing us out with­out tak­ing our opin­ion and forc­ing its pol­icy merely be­cause the area now falls into a cen­tral part of the city,”

Gur­jit Singh, Sec­re­tary Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee

“It is ironic that in­stead of ac­knowl­edg­ing the work of our peo­ple, the thank­less gov­ern­ment of Megha­laya and some groups are hell-bent on throw­ing us out with­out tak­ing our opin­ion and forc­ing its pol­icy merely be­cause the area now falls into a cen­tral part of the city,” said Gur­jit Singh.

The three chiefs of the re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions -Gur­d­wara Sahib, Hindu Tem­ple and Church will pe­ti­tion the of­fice of the Gov­er­nor of Megha­laya seek­ing his in­ter­ven­tion as the gov­ern­ment plans the blas­phe­mous vi­cious move to de­mol­ish these places of wor­ship for their petty pe­cu­niary ends.

Speak­ing to a sec­tion of the me­dia, Gur­jit Singh, Sec­re­tary Har­i­jan Pan­chayat Com­mit­tee said, “Legally, we are in a strong po­si­tion and we have no doubt what­so­ever that the High Court of Megha­laya sta­tus quo or­ders have been vi­o­lated by the cur­rent moves of the gov­ern­ment and when chal­lenged the Courts will throw out and nul­lify this act of the state Gov­ern­ment taken un­der ex­tra­ne­ous pres­sure and for po­lit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions.

“We have ap­proached the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties, the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Sched­uled Castes, Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Safai Karam­charis and the Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion and we ex­pect them to reach Shil­long to lis­ten to our griev­ances.”

“Re­li­gious places of wor­ship are sacro­sanct and can­not be de­mol­ished un­der any cir­cum­stances. I shud­der to think of the con­se­quences, should the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment make a mis­ad­ven­ture in this di­rec­tion.”

Gur­jit Singh, Pres­i­dent, Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak Dar­bar, Shil­long

The Sikh San­gat of Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak Dar­bar will soon start round the clock re­li­gious prayers sup­pli­cat­ing to God Almighty to help them in this hour of cri­sis. The Pres­i­dent of the Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak Dabar -Gur­jit Singh said, “Re­li­gious places of wor­ship are sacro­sanct and can­not be de­mol­ished un­der any cir­cum­stances. I shud­der to think of the con­se­quences, should the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment make a mis­ad­ven­ture in this di­rec­tion.”

Pas­tor Hi­man­shu, while ad­dress­ing the res­i­dents of the area at the Sun­day meet­ing said, “Un­doubt­edly, we are in a very dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion. Let us stay united and pray so that bet­ter sense pre­vails and the pow­ers that be are blessed to think of the com­mon good and not just for a se­lect sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion.”

Let us stay united and pray so that bet­ter sense pre­vails and the pow­ers that be are blessed to think of the com­mon good and not just for a se­lect sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion.”

Pas­tor Hi­man­shu, Church of North In­dia, Pun­jabi Lane, Shil­long

WSN learns that Sikh bod­ies across In­dia are con­tem­plat­ing ac­tion against the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment for its vi­cious cam­paign to dis­lo­cate the poor Shil­long Sikhs.