Pak deports 5 Chinese engineers and workers

LAHORE: Pakistan has deported five Chinese engineers and workers engaged in the construction of a 126-km portion of the Gojra-khanewal Motorway for their involvement in a clash with security personnel in Punjab province of the country.

Those deported include the project manager Xu libing, administration officer Tian Weijun, material and equipment engineer Wang Yifan, financial affairs manager Wang Yifan and field engineer Tan Yang.

"Five Chinese engineers and workers engaged in the construction of a 126-km portion of the Gojra-khanewal Motorway from Dinpur to Khanewal Punjab have been deported. Police brought them to Lahore from where they were deported to Beijing on Tuesday," says Khanewal District Police Officer Rizwan Umer Gondal.

The Chinese nationals in question on April 4 allegedly had placed heavy machines on roads linking Kabirwala to Khanewal, some 350-km from Lahore, to protest against "unnecessary restriction on their movement." They had also clashed with the personnel of a special protection unit of the police set up for the security of Chinese working in the country. They also allegedly damaged a vehicle of the unit. A video of their altercation between the Chinese had also gone viral on social media.

The government had formed a three-member committee that probed the matter. It held the Chinese national responsible for the clash and security violation. Declaring them persona non grata, it said, "the Chinese workers should have realised the sensitivity of the situation and should not have taken the law into their own hands." The Chinese nationals in question were reportedly unhappy with restrictions on their movement and ban on visits by outsiders at night. They also wanted removal of the special protection unit staff from their camp.