KARACHI: Traffic near Laasi Para street 3 is thin on Wednesday, unlike most days when even the service lanes in Baldia No 4 are clogged. As in the rest of the country, the headcount as part of the census drive has taken off in the area. According to an officer who is part of the bureau of statistics’ planning and development department, Karachi and Hyderabad have been declared ‘sensitive’ zones due to their history of unrest as a result of differences in ethnicities and language. Within Karachi, West district has been declared ‘the most sensitive’.

Social worker and resident of Baldia Town’s Laasi Para, Rehana Yasmeen, says that “refusals for polio vaccinations, the attack on a school principal associated with the Awami National Party and the general belief that this is the dumping ground for [bodies after] encounters are some of the reasons this area is considered a sensitive zone”.

A police officer in plain clothes, a Rangers officer, a Naval officer and four officers from the bureau of statistics are part of this small group knocking on door after door in, by now, two lanes and asking for information. They are accompanied by social workers Yasmeen and Allah Buksh. The government representative, who only shared his first name, Farhan, says he is to “collect information from two blocks only and is counting the heads of the households so far”. Beginning at 8:30am, he has counted 82 heads of households by 12:30pm, completing three streets in Laasi Para.

In one such household, Sakeena Habib, a Pakhtun born in Khyber Agency who moved to Karachi almost 30 years ago, is told by the officer to be prepared for an extensive interview. She readily agrees and is further told to not leave home or ask officers to come later. She nods again. The extensive details, explains Allah Buksh, are going to be about the number of washrooms per household, the number of residents, and how the expenses are divided within the family, amongst other questions.

Twenty-five minutes away from Baldia No 4, linked by dilapidated roads, Ittehad Town offers a complete contrast. As I turn into a lane, mistaking armed guards standing outside a house as a part of the census team, the traffic is constant. It is only upon reaching them that I am informed that this is the hujra of a local leader where a Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf member is paying visit. Yasmeen explains then that “ward members and chairmen are already discussing the outcome of the census, which has hardly just begun”. Topmost amongst their worries is the counting of the Pakhtuns: they fear that the outcome might be “deliberately tilted to show them as a minority,” she explains. But she quickly adds that this “is speculation for now, borne of fear, nothing much”. However, this is the basic fear among various ethnicities around Baldia Town in particular and the country in general, adds Allah Buksh.

Nazeer Khan, a resident of Block 3 of Ittehad Town near National Chowk, has a paper ready to help him remember the details such as the number of family members, an extra gate leading to a hujra, when the gate for the hujra was built, etc. He is politely informed by Shahbaz Ahmed, an officer representing the bureau of statistics, that this information won’t be required at the moment. Another resident informs Ahmed that he recently rented out the upper portion of his house to a family from Charsadda. “Anyone who moves here recently will not be counted as a resident. We’ll only count those who have been living here for six months or more,” says Ahmed, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “This information will then be used by the government to ascertain the number of communities migrating internally,” he adds.

Walking past them, after noting Nazeer’s house number and writing on the wall in Urdu, Ahmed turns to another man from next door. In the ensuing discussion, he asks the man about the number of children he has, the number of toilets in the home, and whether they have a shared kitchen with other residents. As the man provides the details, he is told by Ahmed to remember it as it’ll be asked of him in the coming days.

Some residents from nearby homes form a circle around the census team. The law enforcement personnel stay silent during the entire course of the discussions that take place between Ahmed and the residents. They intervene only to disperse the crowd of unwanted people. As the team takes a break around 1:30pm, I begin to pack and leave but am stopped by another resident who walks with me towards the car. “We are a misunderstood community around here,” says the man, introducing himself as Ghulam Rasool. “The only reason we are willing to provide all this information and more is to dispel the belief that we [Pakhtuns] are terrorists. Keeping information from the authorities would only isolate us further, I believe. It took them nearly 20 years to hold a census and I’m glad that for once, if done in a fair way, it’d show the services of our community across the country.”

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2017