Beijing team to probe suicide attack on Chinese workers in Pak

ISLAMABAD: Investigators from China on Friday reached Pakistan to probe the death of five Chinese nationals in a terrorist attack in the north-western region of the country.

Five Chinese and their Pakistani driver were killed when a suicide-attacker rammed his explosive-laden car into a vehicle in Bisham area of the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday when they were being driven to a construction site of Dasu Hydroelectric power station in Kohistan district of the same province.

This was one of the series of attacks on Chinese interests in the country.

On Friday, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met the investigators at the Chinese Embassy here and briefed them on the investigation so far, a government statement said.

The visit comes two days after Pakistan officials shared with the Chinese embassy the preliminary findings of their investigation into the attack.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday ordered a thorough joint investigation into the deadly terrorist attack on Chinese nationals, as Beijing pressed Islamabad to speed up the hunt for the perpetrators and take effective steps to protect Chinese personnel working in the country.

No group has taken any responsibility for Tuesday’s attack as yet.

However, rebels affiliated with the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) of ethnic Baloch nationalists in the past have carried out such attacks against foreign nationals. Pakistan has blamed enemies of ties with China as responsible for the latest attack but restrained from naming any country or group.

“Pakistan and China are close friends and iron brothers. We have no doubt that the Bisham terror attack was orchestrated by the enemies of Pakistan-China friendship,” foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Baloch said.