Af­ter Lakhim­pur Kheri, next stop Shil­long, as poor Sikhs face re­lo­ca­tion – WSN

By Jagmohan Singh | World Sikh News |

Since the first at­tack on poor Sikhs in 2018 in Shil­long, when an at­tempt was made to torch their houses and over­awe them, fol­lowed by con­certed me­dia bad­ger­ing of Sikhs by lo­cal lead­ers, un­der state pa­tron­age of the BJP-coali­tion gov­ern­ment, the World Sikh News has been ex­hort­ing Sikh lead­er­ship across the board to take keen and con­sis­tent in­ter­est to save the be­lea­guered Sikh res­i­dents, who made Shil­long their home more than two cen­turies ago in the now-named Pun­jabi Lane area, still shame­lessly of­fi­cially called the Sweep­er­er’s Colony road.

WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh re­peats the plea of wide-rang­ing Pan­thic par­tic­i­pa­tion and protest across In­dia to save the habi­tat of the Shil­long Sikhs.

Since the first attack on poor Sikhs in 2018 in Shillong, when an attempt was made to torch their houses and overawe them, followed by concerted media badgering of Sikhs by local leaders, under state patronage of the BJP-coalition government, the World Sikh News has been exhorting Sikh leadership across the board to take keen and consistent interest to save the beleaguered Sikh residents, who made Shillong their home more than two centuries ago in the now-named Punjabi Lane area, still shame­lessly of­fi­cially called the Sweep­er­er’s Colony road. WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh re­peats the plea of wide-rang­ing Pan­thic par­tic­i­pa­tion and protest across In­dia to save the habi­tat of the Shil­long Sikhs.

SEE ALSO: Poor Shil­long Sikhs re­ject Megha­laya gov­ern­ment plans for their evic­tion

After a spate of High court or­ders re­it­er­at­ing the po­si­tion of the Sikh res­i­dents of Pun­jabi Lane, Shil­long, the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment which was ly­ing low dur­ing the Covid19 times, has sud­denly gone over­board, with the cab­i­net tak­ing de­ci­sions to take over the prop­erty of the area dis­puted by them, forcible evic­tion of gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees and oth­ers by re­lo­cat­ing them else­where as per the will of the gov­ern­ment.

Even though the mat­ter of the re­lo­ca­tion of the Shil­long Sikhs is pend­ing in the Supreme Court and the Megha­laya High Court at Shil­long, even though there are sta­tus quo and non-re­lo­ca­tion or­ders by the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties, Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion and the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Safai Karam­charis, the Megha­laya gov­ern­ment is re­sort­ing to stron­garm tac­tics.

The full re­port of the so-called High-Level Com­mit­tee has not yet been made pub­lic.

WSN ap­peals to the Sikh world to rise to the oc­ca­sion as we do not want any more in­jus­tice against Sikhs in far-flung ar­eas.

See the full report, ‘Af­ter Lakhim­pur Kheri, next stop Shil­long, as poor Sikhs face re­lo­ca­tion’ (WSN, 8 Oct 2021), here.

RELATED STORY:

Sikkim High Court orders status quo at Gurdwara Gurudongmar – WSN (Asia Samachar, 14 Sept 2017)

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