The first meeting of the newly established Executive Council of the Citizen Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) re -elected Zubair Habib as head of CPLC over the next three years, emerged on Wednesday.
He also served as CPLC head, was appointed in October 2015 when his Board accepted the resignation of former boss Ahmed Chinoy and appointed Habib in his place.
“Sindh’s Interior Minister, in consultation with the Executive Council, ordered the head of CPLC Zubair Habib to continue his post,” said an official statement issued today.
Habib told him Dawn.com That previously, the CPLC worked under the police rules. The Sindh Assembly had approved the Police Law in 2019 under which the CPLC was declared as a legal body, under which its new configuration was required.
Previously, the governor of Sindh was the head of the Advisory Council, but now the Minister of the Interior would be its president. Similarly, the Interior Minister would be the head of the Executive Council, whose members included the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Law, the Inspector General (IG) of the Police, the Secretary of the Public Security Commission and the head of CPLC.
The CPLC operational chief would be his boss, who would be nominated by the Executive Council (CE). Habib said it was the first CE meeting, which appointed him as head of CPLC over the next three years.
The meeting also appointed five members of the private sector. They included the former IG Salem Vahidy, businessman Ziad Bashir, the lawyer Qurban Ali Malano, the president of the Panjwani Foundation, Nadira Panjwani and businessman Saqib Sheerazi. The participants of the meeting also established a “Finance Committee” and Shabbar Malik was appointed attached head of CPLC for operations.
The Interior Minister of Sindh, Ziaul Hassan Lanjar, instructed to present recommendations to increase financial aid to CPLC for the financial year of 2025-26.
Lanjar said Sindh was the only province where the CPLC had been established and worked successfully. He described it as an example of “public-private association to fight crimes and repair people’s complaints.”
The minister ordered the head of CPLC to expand his network in Upper Sindh, saying that the provincial government would help in the provision of his office and resources.
In September of last year, the retired judge Nasar Akbar presented his resignation from the president of the CPLC EC in protest in the “illegal” continuation of the CPLC chief during the last five years without any official notification of the Department of Origin.
The former judge of the Supreme Court and the Superior Court of Sindh had sent their renunciation letter, along with detailed reasons behind their decision, to the principal minister. According to the letter, Judge Akbar had informed the main minister that Habib continued “illegally” occupying the position during the last nine years for the third consecutive mandate.
