• Says census deadline extended to ‘appease two parties in Karachi’
• Claims Centre wants to fudge census figures in favour of Punjab

KARACHI: Expressing concerns over extension of census deadline only in urban areas and ending it for other districts of Sindh, intellectuals, writers, artists, academics and members of civil society on Monday demanded an immediate halt to the ongoing population count exercise and that a meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) be convened to review the situation and take further steps.

Writer Noorul Huda Shah, bureaucrat-turned-politician Mehatab Rashdi, Jami Chandio, Barrister Zamir Ghumro, Amar Sindhu, Rafiq Mangi, Advocate Yousif Laghari, Prof Zakia Aijaz and 26 other Sindhi intellectuals, writers, poets, lawyers, journalists and others issued a statement stating that they were deeply concerned over “unconstitutional” acts of the federal government to “rig census results in the province of Sindh on the pressure of some ethnic and sectarian outfits who stand defeated in the urban centres of Sindh in recent local government elections”.

They also warned of strikes and blockades to protect political rights of the people of Sindh.

They said that the recent census exercise began on March 1 and was supposed to be completed in one month, as “unconstitutionally” announced by the ministry of planning & development, but the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) had extended its last date for the fifth time.

They saw the multiple extensions as politically motivated and stated that it was done to appease two political parties in Karachi. They did not name the two parties.

“Whereas census has been closed in many districts of Sindh where infrastructure is badly damaged and hundreds of thousands of people are displaced following 2022 floods. So instead of reaching to those areas which might require more time, the PBS has kept extending dates in urban centres,” the statement reads.

They alleged that the PBS was not prepared for the huge exercise and it made it controversial by acceding to “illegal demands of defeated ethnic and sectarian parties of Karachi”.

They said that the PBS overnight fudged the figures in Karachi by abnormally increasing average number of people per block from 1,000 to 3,000.

“This shows that so-called Digital Census is not a transparent and fair exercise but a part of a continuous plan to keep numbers of Punjab intact and ensure its political dominance. Over and above it, the PBS has increased the numbers of allied ethnic groups of Punjab from other provinces,” they stated.

They said that the extension of the census deadline till May 15 only for Karachi and a few other cities “shows that the federal government wants to fudge the census figures in favour of Punjab and its allied ethnic groups in other provinces to retain political control of one province by hook or by crook”.

“People of Sindh will resort to every step including strikes and blockades to protect their political rights against the onslaught of the Centre and its allies in Sindh. It may be too late for Centre if it perpetuates its unconstitutional role,” the statement concluded.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2023