KARACHI: The opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf on Tuesday announced that it would stage demonstrations across the metropolis on May 1 in protest over what it called a “fake census” that aimed at reducing the population count of Karachi.

Speaking at a press conference at the party office, PTI-Karachi president Aftab Siddiqi asked the people to come out of their homes and raise their voice against the unjust and unfair population count of their city.

He said the main protest demonstration would be held in North Nazimabad while the party would also stage protests in different districts of the city.

He said it was his party which while in power decided to conduct the digital census for fixing the population of the country in general and Karachi in particular.

“For that purpose, the PTI government had allocated Rs5 billion and invested heavily to acquire modern technology for swift and accurate results,” he said. “But since the process of this digital census has started, we have witnessed serious flaws in the app developed for this purpose and lack of resources which cast doubts over its efficiency.”

He said that this was being done to manipulate the real population of Karachi. “But let me convey this loud and clear that we will not accept any fraud this time in the name of census.”

He also accused the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakisan (MQM-P) for being silent on the flawed census only to “enjoy power and ministries”. The PTI leader said that his party had serious concerns over the ongoing enumeration process and it would not accept any attempt to “manipulate” the number of people of metropolis.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2023