Sindhi nationalist parties have reiterated their distrust of the 2011 national housing census with the Sindh Taraqi Pasand (STP) saying that the ‘unofficial results’ were revealed as a trick to trigger a reaction from the Sindhi-speaking population. “The results are objectionable because they show that of the 10.75 million houses in Sindh, Karachi has 3.7 million,” said the STP’s Dr Rajab Memon, at a press conference on Monday.
Several days ago, the census results were disclosed on a television channel by an election commission officer from Sukkur district but they were neither rebutted nor accepted by the Sindh Census Commission’s Noor Muhammad Laghari, who also appeared in the same programme.
STP’s Dr Memon tried to point out that the results, which he described as “engineered” were “irrational” and an effort to elicit a reaction from Sindhis. “According to the 1998 census, Karachi had nearly 2 million houses. The new census shows the figure to have almost doubled in less than 13 years, which is hard to believe,” he said. He demanded a new house census be held in Karachi from July.
Although Karachi is the largest among the 23 districts of Sindh, the proportion of households cannot be one-third of the total, he argued.
He asserted that the Sindhi-speaking population will not tolerate the government’s efforts to convert them into a minority. According to Dr Memon, his party would organise protests for three days in Sindh, starting June 24.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 21st, 2011.
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