Karachi police on Thursday arrested a census taker for falsely reporting that he had fallen prey to street robbers who had snatched his mobile phone while collecting census information.

The accused confessed to lying about the snatching and said that he had actually just lost his phone. “I figured lying about it might prompt them to appoint a security guard with me,” he said.

On Wednesday evening, the census taker in question reported that unknown suspects on motorcycles had snatched his phone and fled as he was taking the census in the Landhi area of Karachi.

He said the robbers did not take the government-issued Android tablet that he was using for census taking.

Police officials said that security has been provided to the census staff, but according to the victim, no security guard had been appointed with him, due to which ‘the incident’ took place.

Pakistan launched its first-ever digital population and housing census on Wednesday in an effort to securely gather demographic data on every individual ahead of the general elections later this year.

On Wednesday, there were reports that technical issues had slowed down the census taking process.