KARACHI: The Sindh government on Wednesday set up a ‘provincial advisory board’ comprising senior security officials, academician and members of civil society mainly to help government design a security policy in view of growing challenges.

“The Sindh home department has constituted the provincial advisory board under the chairmanship of Sindh secretary for home affairs Dr Niaz Ali Abbasi,” said a statement. “The members of the board include additional inspector general of Sindh police, heads of criminology and sociology departments of Karachi University, Sindh University, Jamshoro, and Shah Abdul Latif University, Kahirpur.”

It said another ‘think thank or person of eminence with expertise in security and legal issues’ would be nominated by the home secretary.

“The terms of reference of the advisory board are: to conduct research on major crimes and security issues (sectarian issue) of Sindh, to organise national and international seminars on major crimes and security issues, to prepare necessary policy briefs and working papers for consideration of the government of Sindh and to prepare material on major crimes and security issues for presentation to the Sindh cabinet and provincial assembly.”

When contacted, a senior official said the objective of the board was to engage the security experts and academicians on a platform where they could help each other while researching on security challenges of Sindh.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2014