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Hindu, Sikh, Christian communities threaten to stage protests countrywide
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Prof Kalyan Singh says govt deliberately not publishing minorities’ record because it does not want to increase reserved seats for them
LAHORE: Minorities held a demonstration and staged a protest in Lahore on Tuesday for not publishing the data of minority community in the recently held 6th census of Pakistan.
People from Sikh, Hindu and Christian communities gathered in front of the Lahore Press Club (LPC) under the banner of ‘Minorities Alliance of Pakistan’ to press for their demands, saying that the government must release the official census record of minorities within 30 days; otherwise, they would hold protest and demonstrations in the whole country on a daily basis.
Speaking on the occasion, Hindu Sudhar Sabha President Amarnath Randhawa said that the Sindh Assembly has rightly termed the recently issued census report as “unsatisfactory and controversial” because all the minorities living in Pakistan have also raised reservations over the report.
“After the nomination of Kamran Michael as the Minister for Statistics, it was being expected that the minorities would be enumerated in a transparent manner—as he himself belongs to the Christian community—but it has remained a dream only as depicted in the census report,” he said.
Khalid Shahzad, a political and social activist hailing from the Christian community, said that minorities have been demanding equal distribution of resources for the last 70 years, but they are being neglected and that is the primary reason for their political, social and economic backwardness. He further added that minorities in this country are also not getting their due right to the job quota, as the government has failed to give them 5 per cent job quota.
The protesters were carrying banners and placards while also chanting slogans against the government. They were also demanding a suo motu case by the Supreme Court, and said that the apex court must summon the heads of the departments concerned and put a binding on them to publish the census record of minorities immediately.
Meanwhile, Prof Kalyan Singh said that the government is deliberately not publishing the record of minorities because it does not want to increase the reserved seats for them in the national and provincial assemblies.
“Once we are counted in a transparent manner and the report gets published, it would be binding on the government to increase the seats reserved for minorities,” he added.
According to Pandit Bhagat Lal, the minorities are an equal citizen of this state and it is their right that their census report must be published. He also blamed the minister for statistics for his lacklustre attitude towards the minorities—despite the fact that he hails from the same community.
