PHC issues notices for Khowar language non-inclusion in census form

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday put the Ministry of Interior and Pakistan Bureau of Statistics on notice, directing them to submit reply in a writ petition filed for inclusion of the Khowar regional language of the Chitral district in the census form 2017.

A division bench comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Ijaz Anwar issued the notices and sought replies on April 13, the next date for hearing into the case. The writ petition was filed by residents of Chitral district, including Dr Inayatullah Faizi and Shahid Ali Khan Yaftali, a lawyer, through lawyers Barrister Waqar Ali and Aamir Ali.

During the hearing, Barrister Waqar submitted that the mother tongue of the petitioners was called “Khowar” which is widely spoken in Chitral, Gilgit-Baltistan, some areas of Swat district, besides other areas in Pakistan.

He pointed out that the petitioners and other who spoke “Khowar” language were shocked to note that the language had not been included in the census form as only nine languages were mentioned and the rest of the languages had been put in category “others”.

“Objectives to be achieved from census is to determine the actual number of the citizens in Pakistan, the living standards of the Pakistani citizens, the rate of poverty, the rate of literacy, the number of minorities, the number of languages, the standards of living in backward areas, etc so that the resources of the country could be justifiably utilized for the welfare of the citizens proportionately and accordingly,” petitioners claimed in the petition.

They submitted that non-inclusion of petitioners’ language in the census form defeated the very purpose of census because the government would not be able to know the exact number of people speaking “Khowar”. They prayed the court to direct the respondents to include Khowar as a regional language in the census form in the second phase starting from April 15.