Some political parties and NGOs in Meghalaya have opposed the conditions set by Mazhabi or Dalit Sikhs and other non-tribal residents to move out of a prime commercial area in State capital Shillong.
The Harijan Panchayat Committee (HPC), representing the residents of Shillong’s Harijan Colony or Punjabi Lane, had agreed to relocate in April, four years after a communal flare-up associated with a drive to evict them. There are 342 families in the 3.33-acre colony with two-storey hovels flanking a 300-metre lane.
The conditions including resettling the residents in one locality with 200 sq. metre land per family, providing each family with ₹20 lakh to build basic dwellings, letting some 60 community shopkeepers to carry on with their business in Harijan Colony after relocation and leaving religious structures in the vacated area untouched.
