The rise and fall of CPLC

The rise and fall of CPLC

It was a brilliant initiative of Governor (Justice) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim to establish the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) in March 1990.  Led by honest, brave and efficient citizens Jamil Yusuf and Nazim Haji, it was an organiisation that Sindh could be genuinely proud of.  Using technology and modern techniques, CPLC not just successfully delivered on many of its initial objectives, but also developed its capacity and competence to deal with exceptional situations and notorious criminals.

While still a credible organization, it is true that over the years the CPLC lost much of its original steam, sheen and shine.  It has thinly spread itself and remains unclear about its basic mandate.  Should it be helping and enabling other law enforcing agencies to develop and improve their respective systems or should it become another glorified department of the Sindh Police?  Clearly the CPLC was formed to lend support where the police was inadequate in addressing certain kind of crimes. Why has that capacity not been developed in the last 22 years?

Instead of mentoring and improving the CPLC,  the Sindh government has now decided to place the CPLC under the provincial Home Minister. This will  inevitably transform the CPLC into an extension of the party in power, adding one more body to the vast graveyard of dead Commissions in the Sindh province. Sindh Information Commission, the Sindh Public Safety and Police Complaints Commission and the Sindh Child Protection Authority, are just a few of the numerous luminaries that happily lie buried here.

What is needed is not to extinguish but to reform and improve the CPLC. What is needed is make CPLC a model,  professional,  apolitical and fiercely effective organ of the state.  It takes much vision and wisdom to build institutions. It only takes antagonism and pettiness to destroy them. Will the citizens please speak up?

Naeem Sadiq