MQM-P rejects 'flawed' census process.

KARACHI -- In a strong stand against its own coalition partners at the Centre, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Tuesday rejected the so far results of the ongoing digital census released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and demanded that the ongoing process be halted immediately.

The party rejected what it called a flawed exercise being executed by the employees of the Pakistan Peoples Party-led Sindh government just to keep the population of Karachi undercounted to contain its political, economic and social rights.

Although senior MQM-P leader Dr Farooq Sattar did not mention his party's future strategy if their demands were not, he made it clear that the MQM-P was not going to accept the results of the digital census 'at any cost' as it was 'a matter of life and death'.

'Above all, it is so unfortunate that the PML-N has connived with the PPP and is very much involved in the design to keep Karachi's population undercounted for long-term political implications,' Dr Sattar told a press conference at the party's temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad.

Sattar alleges PPP-led Sindh govt using provincial employees to manipulate population of urban Sindh

'We demand to stop this [digital census] immediately and launch it again in a proper way,' he said.

He said that every person should have access to the census data to see whether he or his family had been counted or not. 'What's the mechanism for a common man to get satisfied? It's so alarming that the provincial government [of PPP] has taken the PML-N on board for its illegal occupation of urban Sindh.'

Referring to the recent data that suggests less than 8.5 million people in Karachi had so far been counted, he said: 'After 100 per cent count is completed, I even doubt that...