Pakistan court orders separate counting of Sikhs in census

Islamabad: A Pakistani court ordered authorities to ensure separate counting of Sikhs in the nationwide census, after the community members filed a plea for not being counted among the religions included in the first national headcount in 19 years.

The Peshawar High Court ordered that the section of Sikhism be included in the religion column in the census form. The first phase of the sixth census which started on March 15 had clubbed Sikhs with the Scheduled Castes of the country while separately counting the Muslims, Hindus, Christians and some other groups.

The Sikh community filed a petition in the high court which after hearing ordered that the section of Sikhism be included in the religion column in the census form.

The high court directed that the implementation of the ruling should be carried out in the second phase of the population census which would started from April 25.

Already, the separate counting of physically challenged people and transgenders is being done for the first time in the census. Another petition was filed by the Sikhs yesterday in the Sindh High Court (SHC) to include Sikhism in the religion column in the census form.

The counting will let each community know its exact numbers and demand share in the national resources.