KARACHI: Senior politician and disgruntled Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan leader Dr Farooq Sattar on Monday alleged that the MQM-P chose federal ministries over the people of Karachi and became part of a cabinet decision that approved controversial National Census-2017.

Speaking at a press conference, Dr Sattar urged MQM-P convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui to quit the ministries and take to the streets against the controversial decision and he, as well as Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Mustafa Kamal, would support him.

“Khalid bhai, do not commit this injustice with the people of Karachi for the sake of a few people. Save Karachi instead of your ministries,” he said, adding that the MQM-P feared that some of its people would get arrested as soon as they left the ruling coalition.

He said that the population of Karachi was around 30 million, but it was shown as just 14m in the 2017 census.

‘Khalid bhai, do not commit this injustice with the people of Karachi’

Dr Sattar, who is the self-styled head of the organisation restoration committee of the MQM-P, said that Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed had himself said that the population of Karachi was 30m and former Karachi Corps Commander Naveed Mukhtar had said the same. He said even in 2013 the National Database and Registration Authority had said in a report that Karachi’s population was 22m.

He said that the undercounting of people in the census would result in less representation of the people of Karachi in the national and provincial assemblies, allocation of insufficient and meagre funds for development, etc. “It’s a grave injustice to the people of Karachi and it would affect not only Mohajirs but the people of all ethnic origins who live in this city.”

Rejecting the cabinet decision to approve the census, he said that he would launch a movement and approach the judiciary if the government would not reverse its decision on the unfair census.

He said that youths had celebrated the Mohajir Culture Day on the streets of Karachi and one day one of the same youths would become the mayor of the business capital of the country.

Dr Sattar said that the present government was doing injustice with the thousands of employees of Pakistan Steel Mills. First it sacked over 4,500 workers and now it gave them notices to vacate their houses, he said.

He said the government should tell the people as to who was eyeing the prized 17,000 acres of the PSM.

He said that mainstream parties such as the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had offered him to join their ranks but he was not going anywhere.

He demanded justice for the slain MQM leader Ali Raza Abidi, who was assassinated two years ago in front of his DHA residence.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2020