Meghalaya deputy chief minister Prestone Tynsong has said the high-level committee headed by him would soon submit its recommendations regarding relocation of Dalit Sikhs of Shillong’s Harijan Colony (also known as Punjabi Lane).
Tynsong had set up a sub-committee headed by urban affairs minister Hamletson Dohling to take up with the ‘Hima Mylliem’ (a traditional Khasi tribal institution) the issue of the land inhabited by Harijan Colony residents.
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Dohling on Friday submitted the report of the sub-committee to deputy CM Tynsong, The Tribune reported.
According to the Harijan Panchayat Committee, which represents the Sikh residents of the colony, the land was granted to a group of people more than 150 years ago by the then tribal chief of the area.
State government agencies such as the Shillong Municipal Board had no jurisdiction over the land, the committee said.
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Tynsong said the work was nearing completion. “The committee will sit again next week and in all probability, this will be followed by submission of recommendations to the state government,” he said.
The Harijan Panchayat Committee, spearheading the fight against the Meghalaya government’s attempt to evict Sikh residents from their homes, had earlier said that the committee was “partisan” and they would not accept its “decision”.