Disband high-level committee: Harijan Panchayat Committee to Governor

Staff Correspondent

SHILLONG: The Harijan Panchayat Committee (HPC) Shillong on Wednesday requested the Governor to intervene and sought the disbandment of the High Level Committee (HLC) constituted by the State Government.

The high-level committee was constituted in June this year, soon after the unrest that stems out for the removal of the illegal settlers of the Punjabi colony, located in the heart of Shillong. After meeting the State Governor Tatagatha Roy, the Harijan Panchayat Committee Gurjit Singh issued a press release by terming the government constituted High Level Committee (HCL) as ‘acting in a biased and mala fide manner.”

Note mentioning that the HLC was constituted to find the actual government employees and their families who have been residing in the colony, besides those who have received the land pattas as per the official protocol. However, in their meeting with the Governor, they accused the government that it has been issuing illegal orders for survey of properties of the Sikhs to the Shillong Municipal Board.

Besides insinuating that the government intention is to dislocate the Sikhs, the statement signed by Gurjit Singh blatantly stated ‘the so called High level committee is bad in law and its proceedings in so far as relocation of Sikhs are concerned since it has been stayed by the High Court, National Commission for Minorities (NCM) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)”.

Gurjit Singh claimed there were assaults and arson, besides burning of the resident properties. He further said, “we have been victims of veiled threats by student bodies, tribal NGOs, underground organization and other political leadership of the state.”

The Sentinel was on ground zero right from the beginning of the incident where even one of its reporters received head injury in the stone pelting incident. As per media reports, the Government of Punjab has granted Rs 60 lakh as compensation to the residents of the colony, a point which the State Government is seeing as a political ploy.

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