PSP chief challenges census results in SC

KARACHI: Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) chief Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court against the provisional results of census 2017.

Kamal filed a petition at the apex court’s Karachi registry, pleading with the Chief Justice Pakistan to take notice of the findings of the census.

In his petition, he argued that the population of the country’s largest city stands at 21.5 million as per record of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra). However, the population has been deliberately reduced to 16 million.

Kamal claimed there were many areas in the city which were left out of the census. The city’s population has been deliberately understated, which reflected prejudice on the part of the authorities concerned, he lamented.

He said census teams didn’t seek help of Nadra to gather the exact data about residents of the city, nor was any third-party audit carried out to cross-check the findings. Understating Karachi’s population is a ploy to usurp its resources, he claimed.

The PSP chief pleaded that an audit of the census figures be carried out by a third part to determine its veracity.

The court was further pleaded to order the authorities concerned to increase seats of the national and provincial assemblies in the city.

Speaking to the media, Kamal claimed as per Nadra record, Karachi’s population is hundred times more than what has been shown in the provisional results.

Lahore’s population had been ballooning by three per cent every year, but that of the city increased merely by 1.8 per cent over the past 18 years despite that people from all over the country come to the metropolis in droves, he wondered.