Islamabad: Pakistan recorded a 22 per cent increase in the number of voters belonging to religious minorities in the last four years, according to the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) data.
The number of voters belonging to minority communities in the country has now increased to 4.43 million from 3.63 million in 2018 - reporting a 22 percent increase in four years. Hindu voters continue to maintain their majority among the minorities in Pakistan.
“NADRA has so far registered 4.43 million persons belonging to minority communities including Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists across the country,” said NADRA Chairman Tariq Malik during a consultative session with an interfaith delegation. The dialogue was led by Senator Kamran Michael and attended by Senator Gurdeep Singh, Senator Danesh Kumar, Senator Anwar Lal Dean, Senator Krishna Bai, MNA Naveed Aamir Jeeva, and MPA Shakeel Marcus Khokhar. The officials from the Pakistani minority communities raised the issues faced by their communities, especially those related to getting legal documents and ID cards.
The NADRA chairman assured them of support and said that the national database authority would give priority to the registration of identity cards for Pakistanis who identify as minorities.
“Identity Empowerment” campaign
Tariq Malik announced a special counter and preferential treatment at NADRA registration centres for people belonging to different ethnic and religious minorities across Pakistan. The organisation has also launched a special registration campaign titled “Identity Empowerment” to speed up the process of registration of minorities in the country. Another key initiative announced by NADRA includes the free-of-cost issuance of identity cards for those applying for the first time to facilitate minority communities.
Malik said that the rights of persons belonging to a national, ethnic, religious, or linguistic minority are as important as the rights of any other citizens of Pakistan. “We are all equal citizens of this country and we all have equal rights” as Article 20 of the Constitution of Pakistan also gives freedom to all citizens to practice their religions and to run their own religious institutions, he added.
Religious minorities make up only about 4 per cent of Pakistan’s estimated 220 million population. The 2017 census reported that Pakistan is home to an estimated 3.5 million Hindus and around 2.5 million Christians. However, the minority communities complained that their populations were undercounted in the last census.
