Karachi: A large number of people took to the streets on Sunday in Karachi to protest against what they termed a highly flawed census drive in the country that failed to properly enumerate the population of the provincial capital as being the largest city of Pakistan.

The protest march was held under the aegis of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) on a portion of Sharea Faisal, which is the busiest artery of Karachi. The ongoing 7th digital population and housing census has so far counted over 17.679 million citizens in Karachi as the enumeration exercise has been continuing. The last census held in 2017 determined that Karachi has over 16 million population.

Speaking to the protestors, the JI Karachi chief, Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman said that a large number of people from different walks of life had taken to the streets in the city to make sure that they and their family members were duly counted in the census campaign.

He emphasised the census results would remain unacceptable to them till each and every inhabitant of the city was duly counted in the enumeration exercise.

The JI leader said that his political party would strictly monitor the rest of the enumeration exercise after getting assurance from the relevant federal authorities that the census drive would continue for another 15 days to properly count the remaning residents of the city.

Rehman told the protestors that the flawed nature of the enumeration exercise had been proven by the fact that earlier census staff had missed counting occupants of over 30,000 high-rise buildings in Karachi.

He said it was of utmost importance to accurately and fairly count the population of Karachi given that it generated up to 67 per cent of revenue for the country while the Sindh government collected over 90 per cent of its taxes from the provincial capital.

He said the fair and accurate counting of the population would also ensure that residents of Karachi would get their due representation in the National and provincial assemblies for raising their issues in the corridors of power.

The JI leader said that Karachi wouldn’t get its due share in the national financial resources till all its residents were not counted in the census campaign.

He informed the protestors that the agitation drive of his party would continue till the relevant authorities agreed to take corrective measures to ensure accuracy, transparency, and fairness in the census drive.