Nationalist leaders of the province, led by Sindh Census Monitoring Committee (SCMC) convener and Sindh United Party (SUP) chairman Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah, on Thursday rejected the first phase of the national population census 2011 on grounds of bogus entries of illegal immigrants, migrant workers and malpractices in the house count.
After visiting Mirpurkhas and Tharparkar districts, Shah along with the SCMC members and Pakistan Muslim League-Likeminded leaders arrived at Umerkot, and took out a protest rally from the Thar Bazaar to the Umerkot Press Club. The nationalists, accompanied by activists and leaders of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM), Awami Tehreek (AT), SUP and Awami Jamhoori Party (AJP) termed the house counting process as bogus.
Addressing the participants of the protest rally, Shah said the party rejects the first phase of the national population census because bogus entries of illegal immigrants and migrant workers in Sindh were also made in the house count. “We were given the authority to monitor the census process, but it was only superficial as no complaint made by the SCMC was addressed. The employees of education department, Karachi Water and Sewerage Board workers, Karachi Development Authority and Hyderabad Development Authority were engaged in the house count. How can [the census] be treated as transparent one when a political party’s activists, in the name of community workers, were tasked to fill house count forms.”
“Permanent slavery is being imposed on Sindhis, which we will never accept,” he added. JSQM’s Bashir Ahmed Qureshi said an ethnic group hungry for power has always blackmailed the ruling parties and want to balance the census of Karachi with the whole Sindh. “Under a conspiracy, even public washrooms, electric poles and motels were counted as houses just to show their majority,” he said, adding that Sindhis want that all decisions relating to development are done on the basis of population because once they are converted into a minority; they will have to suffer for centuries.
Deploring that the ruling party has bowed before an ethnic group, Shah said that the SCMC had demanded separate columns for illegal immigrants and migrant workers but their complaints were not entertained by the authorities concerned. Demanding a re-count, he added that it should be carried out in a transparent manner, after announcing curfew in Hyderabad and Karachi.
SCMC Secretary Professor Aijaz Qureshi said that 40 percent villages in rural Sindh were not counted under a conspiracy, as the staff was unaware about the geography of the area. Mir Amanullah Talpur said it was the dishonesty of rulers that they started the census at wrong time, when residents of Thar people had migrated for casual labour while half of Sindh’s population was displaced due to floods.
Riaz Chandio, Azam Jahangiri, Qadir Ranto, Mir Khair Muhammad and Zahid Noon among other nationalist leaders also spoke on the occasion.
