Islamabad: Pakistan's counter-terrorism police conducted multiple raids and arrested at least 12 suspects in connection with a suicide bombing incident last week that killed five Chinese workers and their Pakistan driver in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Shangla area, according to officials. A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a convoy of Chinese engineers which was on its way from Islamabad to their camp in Dasu in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province last Tuesday.
The detainees were not directly involved in the attack but they helped those who orchestrated Tuesday's bombing targeting the Chinese, three police and security officials said. Some of those arrested allegedly had links with Pakistani militants and were being interrogated, while other raids were underway.
The officials said some of the detained suspects transported an explosive-laden car to Shangla, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where a suicide bomber rammed it into another vehicle, killing the Chinese workers. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif rushed to the Chinese embassy in Islamabad in an apparent attempt to mellow down tensions and ordered a joint investigation.
"The Chinese embassy and consulates in Pakistan have immediately launched emergency work, demanding that the Pakistani side conduct a thorough investigation into the attack, severely punish the perpetrators, and take practical and effective measures to protect the safety of Chinese citizens," China's embassy in Islamabad said.
Bodies of Chinese workers flown to Wuhan
Meanwhile, the bodies of five Chinese personnel killed in the suicide bomb attack were flown to Wuhan on a special Pakistani military plane on Monday as Beijing planned to step up security measures to protect hundreds of its workers employed in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects amid increasing attacks by militants.
Thousands of Chinese personnel are working in Pakistan on several projects under the aegis of the $60 billion CPEC. China rushed its investigators to Pakistan on Friday to probe their death as more Chinese firms have stopped work on hydropower projects in the restive north-west region.
“Today, the remains of the five Chinese victims who were killed in a terrorist attack on the Dasu project in Pakistan are brought back to China on a Pakistani military plane,” the spokesperson of China’s Foreign Ministry Wang Wenbin told a media briefing in Beijing. Wang said China firmly supports Pakistan in looking into what happened with utmost resolve and effort, bringing the perpetrators and whoever behind the attack to justice and everything possible to protect the safety and security of Chinese personnel projects and institutions in Pakistan.
Earlier the Chinese Defence spokesman, Sr. Col Wu Qian told the media here that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is willing to work with the Pakistan military to enhance its capability of tackling various security risks and challenges, especially the ability to respond to terrorist attacks and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.
The deadly attack on Chinese workers in Pakistan has shaken their confidence and some of them are planning to leave the country over security reasons, according to Pakistan’s security analyst Muhammad Amir Rana. "The attack has caused significant alarm. Apart from disrupting these vital infrastructure projects, it has shaken the confidence of Chinese nationals working in Pakistan. Reports indicate some are considering leaving the country due to safety concerns," he wrote in Pakistani daily Dawn on Sunday.
Second attack on Chinese nationals in Dasu
Notably, Dasu is the site of a major dam and the area has been attacked in the past. A blast on a bus had killed 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals, in 2021. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police had reached the spot and started relief operations. The rest of the people in the convoy have been protected, Gandapur said.
Earlier in 2023, Chinese engineers were attacked while their vehicles moving in a convoy in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan. Although local media reports claimed several Chinese nationals were killed, later the police officials said they were only injured. The contradictory statement could be apprehended as a method to hide the actual data amid the fact that Chinese nationals were subject to torture in the Balochistan region. China is running a multi-billion CPEC project in Pakistan, undermining the local issues.
While no one claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Balochistan Liberation Army, and the Islamic State-Khorasan were suspected to have been involved in the attack. The TTP has been projected as the prime suspect, as one of its commanders was declared the mastermind behind a similar attack on the Chinese in Kohistan in 2021.
(with inputs from agencies)
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