Crime Governance in Punjab: The Role of Crime Control Department

Abstract

In February 2025, the Government of Punjab established the Crime Control Department (CCD), a provincial police agency, to investigate rising organized crime and to succeed the tainted Organized Crime Unit (OCU). The CCD was positioned as an integrated and well-resourced response to serious crime by the provincial government, which gave the department independent powers of registration of First Information Reports, arrests, investigations, and prosecutions in respect of seventeen categories of offenses. This article analyzes the emergence and development of the CCD through an examination of government notices, statements by government officials, and news reports. In addition, it evaluates the CCD’s performance in relation to a significant and growing body of evidence from HRCP of the use of staged encounters and extrajudicial killings as a method of operations by the CCD, resulting in over 1,000 killings of suspects in about a year. The article also considers the controversy surrounding the creation of the CCD and the response of Imran Khan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader, to the killings and the proposed Punjab Control of Habitual Offenders and Anti-Social Behaviour Bill, 2026.

Keywords: Punjab Police, Crime Control Department, Police reform, Extrajudicial killings, Crime governance.