Census Can be Helpful in Catching Outlaws

June 1, 2015

By Saeed Qureshi

In order to find out who is living and where living it is utterly imperative to conduct a snap survey cum a census in Pakistan without waiting for the next census due in April 2016.  The traditional censuses in 2008 and 2010 could not be conducted and that of 2012 was discarded as unreliable.

I am proposing a nontraditional snap census that would focus on exploring the number of dwellings and housing units in Pakistan and their inmates and the foreign nationals both legal and illegal.  

Besides having the total tally of population the census would help in finding out the demographic complexion as to who is living in villages, cities and elsewhere. This census might as well be useful in elections and for finding out how many children, adults, old people and women are there in the length and breadth of Pakistan.

It might unravel the scale of literacy and illiteracy. So there could be a wide range of advantages accruing from such monumentally productive campaign

But apart from these peripheral useful outcomes, it would reveal how many foreigners or aliens both legal and illegal are living in Pakistan and for how long. Those who cannot be identified or counted through this extremely useful exercise should be declared as persona-non-grata and either forcibly repatriated to their respective countries or sorted out in regards to their activities.

Those who have valid reasons to stay might be allowed for the permissible time period and then asked to leave the country. Some unaccounted aliens might be involved in terrorism mayhem in Pakistan. 

Pakistan has been under an unremitting spell and incidence of violence and terrorism for a few decades being spawned and carried on by diverse groups to implant their respective nefarious agendas. From Baloch separatists to the merciless bands of religious militants and the professional criminal gangs aided by political forces and external enemies have been wreaking havoc in Pakistan and destroying its social peace, economy and stability.  

In Karachi specifically and the elsewhere in Pakistan generally, countless people have lost their lives at the hands of the Taliban and home-grown religious militants for imposing the Sharia rule of their choice on Pakistan.

The Sectarian violence has taken its toll with minority sects being targeted by the majority sects. The bounty hunters, the trigger happy killers and extortion gangs etc rob and kill the peaceful citizens as and when they want. It is indeed an atrocious mayhem. 

Although the violence and crime can be mainly apportioned to homegrown criminal gangs and sectarian parties, yet the foreign hand and external involvement cannot be ruled out to keep Pakistan in a state of perpetual disorder and instability. One would not wink an eye over the Indian spy agency RAW’s support for the Baloch separatists and other stray groups and individuals for perpetuating the cycle of violence and terrorism in Pakistan.

In the backdrop of all these frightening happenings it should be a dire priority to sift the corn from the chaff or to identify the enemies of the state and people of Pakistan. The sabotage and continuous spate of murders, bomb blasts, suicide attacks, blowing of trains and buses, blasting the educational institutions assailing airports and military installations cannot be done by the ordinary people. Such horrendous acts can only be done by highly organized and trained mafias aided and abetted by the external inimical elements.

The law and order situation has become precarious to this extent in Pakistan that one needs only a revolver or knife to kidnap a peaceful citizen, kidnap or rape women, barge into a house and decamp with all the precious belongings of the inmates or gun down the passengers in a vehicle.

For more serious crimes as blasting a mosques of the rival sect, blowing a bus or train, attacking  naval or air force bases, extract ransom or monthly extortions from the harried business parties, there are powerful and highly organized and armed gangs making a mockery of the law and order enforcement network.

So miraculously or mercifully when Rangers and Pakistan army have achieved major breakthroughs in combating and curbing rampant crime and dogged terrorism in Karachi, it would be most desirable and urgent to carry out a census to discover the individuals and the groups both local and aliens who are involved in destabilizing Pakistan.

The Data so collected should be preserved and updated from time to time. A list of the people having licensed arms needs to be prepared and those having unlicensed weapons must be dealt with summarily and given punishments permissible under the law.

 It is indeed indispensable and overdue that the Afghan refugees who came to Pakistan during and in the aftermath of the anti- Soviet Union Afghan war (1979-1989) should be repatriated back to Afghanistan .The exodus of 4 million Afghans from Pakistan would create a huge reservoir of jobs for the real Pakistanis and this would serve as a veritable solution of the unemployment and eradication of poverty.

The Afghan refugees cannot be assimilated nor should they be given nationality as it takes centuries for any race with different culture and language to fully adopt another nation’s culture and social milieu. Moreover the Afghans are not homeless and were allowed to stay until the end of the Afghan war. That war is now over for many years but the Afghans are still present on the soil of Pakistan as refugees.

If at all any community is to be allowed to stay in Pakistan and become citizens they are those Bengalis who supported Pakistan army and a united Pakistan during the tumultuous period of civil war in 1971-72. They deserve to be accepted in Pakistan as its citizens or given any status that befits their situation for a legal residence in Pakistan.

This segment of society has been suffering, all these years, from horrendous atrocities and maltreatment. They have been languishing in miserable conditions in isolated pockets in Bangladesh. They have been isolated and marginalized from the rest of the Bengali nation and shoved and confined to make shits huts and bamboo dwellings with scant civic or social facilities.

 Pakistan needs to be cleaned off both internal and external elements bent upon proving it as a failed state. To find the identities and whereabouts of internal saboteurs and anti state elements, the best mechanism is to conduct census as proposed in this write up.