Lahore: Pakistan is readying a special force of 4,000 security personnel to protect Chinese nationals working at various projects in Punjab province, including the strategic USD 46 billion economic corridor project.
Already more than 17,000 security personnel from the army and other security forces have been engaged to ensure foolproof security of Chinese nationals working across the country on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects that will give the Communist giant access to the Arabian Sea.
The ambitious 3,000-kilometre CPEC project was launched last year to link western China to southern Pakistan through a network of roads, railways and pipelines.
The Punjab government has decided to evolve a special force for the protection of the Chinese working in the province of 10 million people.
"We are recruiting over 4,000 security personnel for the protection of Chinese nationals working at various projects in Punjab," Inspector General of Punjab Police Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera said.
Sukhera further said providing protection to the Chinese is in the national interest and the Punjab police will do so at any cost. "The force will be trained and equipped to perform its duty to the best of its ability," he said.
"The training of new force members has begun and will be completed within six months. The first batch of the force will pass out on September 15 and deployed at 16 projects for the security of Chinese," IGP said adding the recruitment process of around 600 retired army men is also near completion who will also be deployed for the protection of foreigners here.
