The issue concerns around 342 families from Shillong’s Them Lew Mawlong, also known as Punjabi Lane, which has housed sweepers employed by the Municipal Board for decades.
Clashes erupted in the area in May 2018 between the people of the Khasi tribe and the Sikhs living there. The city’s Municipal Board then started an exercise to determine who the legal residents of Punjabi Lane were, which was met with demands to relocate the Punjabis.
A high-level committee was set up by the State government in June that year to solve the issue.
Eventually, the Urban Affairs Department, in its blueprint, proposed the construction of 30-40 flats in 12 blocks on an alternate 2.5-acre plot of land.
The government would demolish the existing buildings at Punjabi Lane as they were not strong enough and reconstruct some units in their place, the department had stated.
Source: Barandbench
