• Meets JI delegation at Governor House
• Hafiz Naeem demands stakeholders’ body to monitor census

KARACHI: Amid growing criticism on the process of ongoing census mainly in Karachi and reservations of almost all political parties of Sindh, Governor Kamran Khan Tessori on Friday formally asked the federal government to waive the condition of deadline for the metropolis and other urban areas of the province as the population counting must continue till the enumerators register every single person living here.

In a major move, Governor Tessori wrote a letter to Planning and Development and Special Initiative Minister Ahsan Iqbal to keep the ‘deadline open’ for the digital census as there are several neighbourhoods, many households and a large number of people who have remained uncounted during the month-long exercise putting serious question mark over the outcome of the total count.

The governor shared the fresh initiative while talking to reporters at Governor House after meeting a delegation of the Jamaat-i-Islami, led by its Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman, who called on him to discuss the census issue and express their reservations over the ongoing exercise.

The JI chief asked Mr Tessori to take up the matter with the federal government.

“There’s not a single individual or party which seems satisfied with this process [digital census],” said Governor Tessori. “And there are reasons for their reservations and objections. They are not just a heresy. There are flaws. There are uncounted areas and people.”

“I have talked to leaders of every party and even yesterday [Thursday] there’s a meeting at Governor House with leaders of some parties who raised the same objection. So I have written a letter to Ahsan Iqbal asking him to keep this process open without any deadline. This should continue for a longer period of time with an objective to count every single person of the province,” he said.

Hafiz Naeem reiterated his party’s demand that each and every person living in the city should be counted as Karachiite.

The JI leader said that the delegation shared concerns over the ongoing census and shared documents which proved its concerns. “Each and every citizen has the right to confirm if he or she has been counted in the enumeration or not. In this regard, people should be given access to the data which is not a rocket science in this age of technology,” he said.

He also proposed a committee comprising stakeholders of the city to oversee the census as the population of Karachi was kept undercounted under a “designed and well-deliberated conspiracy” to usurp its rights and to provide a lifeline to feudalism prevailing in the province and particularly the top brass of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

“The due rights of Karachi and Karachiites in resources and quotas for jobs and education as well as representation in the lower and upper houses of legislature will be compromised very badly if the population is not counted correctly in the census,” said Hafiz Naeem.

He said that the party had raised the same objection over the 2017 census, but the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf had notified the flawed results while “chanting the mantra of next census” and once again the population of Karachi was being counted in half in the name of digital census.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2023