Karachiites not to forgive those who betrayed them in census, says Naeem

Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Monday said Karachiites would not forgive those who betrayed them with a flawed census that compromised the future of the mega city.

Speaking at a press conference at Idara Noor-e-Haq, the party’s headquarters in Karachi, Rehman said Karachiites would avenge the decade-long injustice in the upcoming general elections, which would be the political death of all the parties who played a nefarious role.

He said the previous regimes have brought Karachiites to the brink of an outburst, and the only way to avoid mayhem in society is to hold merit-based, free, fair and transparent general elections. He claimed that Karachi generates 99 per cent of the total sales tax collected in Sindh, but thanks to the politics of interests of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the city receives nothing in return.

He also claimed that the two parties had played a nefarious and criminal role in the undercounting of the population in the city. He remarked that 14.7 million people were skipped in the enumeration process.

He explained that considering the number of electricity and gas meters, the consumption of wheat and rice, and the data of the polio programme and the National Database & Registration Authority (Nadra), the city’s population is over 35 million.

Rehman claimed that the collaboration between the PPP and the MQM deprived Karachiites of their due representation in both houses of the parliament as well as of their share in the national and provincial resources.