Since Thursday evening, the residents of Shillong’s Punjabi Line have barely eaten or slept. The 500 or so inhabitants of this slum, also called Iewmawlong, have mainly been confined to the area since it was besieged by scores of members of the dominant Khasi community, who are demanding that the long-time Punjabi settlers be moved to an area on the outskirts of the city.

The trouble was sparked on Thursday morning by an altercation between a Sikh woman who lives in the colony and a Khasi bus driver over the parking spot for a Meghalaya State Transport Corporation bus. Matters escalated later that day, leading to curfew being imposed in the city early on Friday morning. On Sunday, the restrictions were relaxed for seven hours .

On the ground, thereare two versions about the incident that set off the violence. Some members of the Sikh community in Punjabi Line said that after a Sikh woman was harassed by Khasi men, she and four other women living in the settlement beat them up. The Khasis say that after the argument about parking, they were assaulted by men from the Punjabi Line colony.

The Meghalaya police have arrested one man from Punjabi Line in connection with the assault.

Despite the competing claims, the feuding parties reached a formal compromise at the local Cantonment Board police station on Thursday afternoon. The agreement, written by the bus driver in Khasi, stated that he had no hard feelings towards the Sikh woman and man accused in Thursday’s altercation. “I feel no anger or bitterness,”