KARACHI: Terming the provisional results of the sixth population census “mother of all riggings”, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan chief Dr Farooq Sattar has said that his party will launch a strong protest campaign against injustices with the urban areas of Sindh in the peoples’ counting that was held after the gap of 17 years in the country.

Speaking at a workers’ convention in a PIB Colony playground on Sunday, he said that the MQM would stage a protest rally in next 72 hours from the Quaid’s mausoleum to the Census Commission or the Supreme Court.

He also asked the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Jamaat-i-Islami, Pak Sarzameen Party, Awami National Party, Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi and others to join the MQM rally and to launch a ‘joint’ struggle against the ‘rigging’ in the census.

It was MQM-P’s fourth workers’ convention since Dr Sattar’s Aug 23, 2016 step through which he ousted party founder Altaf Hussain and took control of the party, which was registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan in his name.

A number of workers, office-bearers and elected representatives of the party attended the convention and occasionally shouted slogans and waved the MQM’s tri-coloured flags.

Dr Sattar said that the protest demonstrations and rallies would not only be restricted to Karachi as similar protests would also be held in Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas and Sukkur.

Dr Sattar said that the actual population of Karachi was over 30 million and “an institution” had informed a Senate panel that the population of Karachi was 22m.

He said that the population of not only Karachi but Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and Nawabshah had been shown less intentionally in the census.

He said that the population of Karachi in the 1998 census stood at 9.8m and after a passage of 17 years and amid biggest influx of people into Karachi from all over the country its population now stood at 14 million. “This is illogical and not possible,” he added.

He said that the MQM had already filed a petition in court regarding ‘rigging’ in census. “We will strengthen our case with new facts and figures,” he added.

“We will plead the case of people of Sindh before judiciary and also bring the issue of census to the people’s court,” he said.

Dr Sattar said that the Mohajir community and MQM-P were inseparable as the MQM-P was the only representative group of the Mohajirs and all oppressed people in the country.

Senior MQM leaders Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui and Kanwar Naveed Jameel also spoke.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2017