SHILLONG, Dec 3: The Meghalaya government will hold a
meeting next week with residents of the disputed Punjabi Lane
area in Shillong over the relocation plan, officials said on
Saturday.
In its plan presented before the high court on September 29,
the state government had proposed to relocate 342 families
from the disputed area to land owned by the Shillong Municipal
Board. The families, however, demanded that the government
also build houses for them.
“We have fixed a meeting with the Harijan Panchayat
Committee (HPC) on December 7. We are hopeful that both
sides will be able to sort out their differences in the meeting,” a
senior official of the Urban Development Authority told PTI.
The HPC, which represents these families, had requested to
modify the plan prepared by the state government, and the
government is not averse to some “adjustments”, he said.
The state government had also told the high court that it would
increase the size of the plots as requested by the families.
People from Punjab, who were brought to Shillong around 200
years ago by the British to work as cleaners and sweepers, live
in the area.
Following the assault of a person, a clash broke out in the area
in May 2018 between Khasis and Sikhs. A curfew was imposed
in the area for over a month following the violence.
Soon after, the Shillong Municipal Board began an exercise to
determine the legal residents of the area, after demands to
relocate the ethnic Punjabis.
A high-level committee was set up by the state government to
solve the decades-old issue.
The state government then formulated a plan to relocate the
settlers, most of whom were identified as “illegal encroachers”,
to flats.
After initial reluctance, the HPC agreed for the relocation of the
settlers from the area, locally known as Them Iew Mawlong,
but with certain demands, including the government providing
them plots and bearing the cost of constructing their houses.
However, several local NGOs opposed the demand, warning
that “all hell will break loose” if the demand is accepted when
“indigenous poor are left to fend for themselves”. (PTI)
