‘Two Indians held’ during census exercise

Both were living illegally, says provincial census commissioner Abdul Aleem Memon

KARACHI: A census official in Sindh has said two Indians, who had been living illegally in Karachi, were arrested during the 6th population and housing census in the country.

The first population census in nearly two decades to collect demographic data has been going on smoothly in the country. The last census was held in 1998.

“The Indians have no legal documents,” Sindh Census Commissioner Abdul Aleem Memon said while addressing a news conference after the completion of the first phase of the census in eight districts of Sindh, including six districts of Karachi and one each in Hyderabad and Ghotki.

“One person has been arrested from Gulberg Town and we have recovered a diary from his possession,” Memon said, adding, “The Indian has now been handed over to law-enforcement agencies.”

Talking about the census exercise, the provincial census commissioner said around 567 complaints had been received from various districts, a majority of them related to delay in initiating the exercise.



Memon said in the first phase started on March 15, around 50% census blocks had been covered and added that the second phase would be started from March 31 which will continue till April 12.

“There are around 463 census charges, 2,912 census circles and 18,162 blocks in eight districts [that have been covered],” he said.

Regarding Karachi division, Memon said: “There are around 14,552 blocks only in Karachi out of which 7,276 blocks have been covered.”

When his attention was drawn towards many houses that had been left uncovered, Memon said: “They will be covered in the second phase.”

“After April 12, people should file complaint at our given numbers. The census staff will reach there to cover uncounted houses,” he said.

Responding to a question, the commissioner said the census staff had been strictly directed to not use pencil or photostat copies in the entire exercise.

“We have received a few complaints in which people allege that enumerators have been using lead pencils to fill census forms. This has now been stopped,” Memon said and added, “A total of 1,400 complaints have been received by the bureau of statistics, of them 567 belong to Karachi.”

Shaukat Nizam, the focal person who deals with census issues, refuted media reports that the census staff was untrained. Regarding the penalty on providing wrong information, he said, “Field officers have been given magisterial powers and they can take action promptly, with imposing a penalty of Rs50,000 and six months imprisonment if wrong information is provided [to them].”

He said two enumerators – one from the civil government and other from the army – had been assigned the job in each block to list houses and gather information about people living in them.

“Army personnel and police have been providing security and no untoward incident has been reported so far.”

Nizam said the census exercise in the remaining 21 districts of Sindh would be started from April 25 and continue till May 25 and added that those districts would be covered in two phases.

“Each phase spans over 14 days,” he said, adding. “First three days have been spared for house listing, 10 days for headcount [counting of family members] and one day has been fixed for homeless people.”

Sharing details of blocks in 21 districts, Nizam said 30,838 blocks had been designed in the districts, and national and international observers, including from the United Nations, were also monitoring the exercise.