Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong today maintained that the government does not plan to evict the residents of Sweeper Colony in Them Ïew Mawlong but, rather, to resettle them somewhere better.
Justice Ranjit More of the High Court of Meghalaya passed an order on a writ petition filed by the Harijan Panchayat Committee (HPC). The HPC had filed the petition challenging the move of the government’s high-level committee (HLC) to relocate the residents of Sweeper Colony.
The HPC stated that the residents of Sweeper Colony were given the land in Them Ïew Mawlong through an agreement executed in 1954 with the Syiem of Mylliem. The ancestors of the residents there were brought over by the British for sanitation work in pre-Independence times.
Going by the deliberations of the HLC, the panchayat said it feared that the residents of the colony would be evicted.
“Having gone through these documents, I am of the prima facie opinion that the apprehension of the petitioner members is justified,” Justice More observed.
When asked about this, Tynsong stated categorically that there is, and will not be, any forceful eviction of the residents.
“What happened was that we have asked and directed the concerned departments to find an alternative for the people settling there so that they can be accommodated in a better place and accordingly the departments did that and it is not a question of removing them,” he maintained.
