2 suspects held in Pak bus blast case

BEIJING: China on Thursday took note of the arrest of two suspects by police in Pakistan in connection with the recent bus explosion that killed nine Chinese nationals, saying it will work with Islamabad to “go to the bottom of the truth” to punish the perpetrators.

Asked for his reaction to the arrests as well as an update on the investigation into the bus blast being jointly conducted by Chinese and Pakistani investigators, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, “I noted that the Pakistani police arrested two people suspected to have been engaged in the bus blast on July 28.”

Now that the two sides are conducting a joint investigation into the case, “we will work with Pakistani side to get to the bottom of the truth, punish the perpetrators and ask Pakistani side to protect the safety of the Chinese

personnel and assets to prevent similar incidents in the future”, he said.

Pakistan’s police on Wednesday arrested two suspects in connection with the explosion on the shuttle bus that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals, in Dasu area of Upper Kohistan district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where a Chinese company is building a 4,300-megawatt hydropower project on the Indus river.

“Two suspects, who are brothers, are from Quetta, Balochistan,” the counter terrorism department of Punjab police said in Lahore.

The police claimed that they have established a “common link” between the incident and the blast outside the house of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief and Mumbai terror attack mastermind Saeed in Lahore. Three persons were killed and 24 others injured when a powerful car bomb exploded outside Saeed’s residence in Lahore on June 23.