Tag Archives: mohmand

Military involved with census

The military is involved in the census process that is currently underway. Strangely, in addition to providing security to census-takers, it is handing out its own, second census form and sending out 44,000 troops to do a parallel count. The UN is concerned:

But that has created some disquiet for the UN, who are concerned about the army’s role as parallel data collectors.

Additionally, the current census will count IDPs as residents of the host province if they have been there for more than 6 months, which is likely to yield severe undercounts for FATA, particularly Waziristan and Mohmand, and that will have unfortunate consequences when it comes to allocating budgets and resources based on the new census. A case has been filed by rights activist, Samreen Wazir:

NADRA has blocked certain CNICs ahead of the census:

The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has blocked 350,000 computerised national identity cards (CNICs) ahead of the first phase of the census.

Bajwa claimed that most of the blocked CNICs belonged to Afghan nationals. However, he added, the census would cover all people living in the country irrespective of their ethnicity or nationality. Foreign nationals would also be registered.

However, in the census reports only those Afghans will be counted who have valid Pakistani CNICs and the rest will be left out. The PBS will use Nadra database to check fake CNICs.

Ethnic Baloch are also worried about the census as it is likely to put them in the minority. They’ve filed petitions with superior courts. Full story here.

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