Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Chinese workers at the Dasu construction site yesterday (file photo)
Peshawar, Pakistan:
Pakistani police have detained more than a dozen people, including Afghan nationals, in connection with a suicide bombing that killed five Chinese engineers and their driver last week, a senior law enforcement source said on Tuesday.
Beijing is Islamabad’s closest regional ally and a major investor in Pakistan’s faltering economy, but Chinese citizens have been frequently targeted by Islamist militants in recent years.
The engineers and their Pakistani driver were heading to the Dasu hydroelectric dam, which was being built by a Chinese company in northwest Pakistan, when a bomber crashed into their vehicle and exploded.
“More than a dozen suspects have been detained,” a police source told AFP on condition of anonymity. “Among the arrested suspects are some Afghan nationals.”
Islamabad blames neighboring Afghanistan for a recent increase in attacks in Pakistan and accuses the Taliban government there of failing to rein in militants sympathetic to its cause.
The Taliban government in Kabul has repeatedly denied providing safe haven to the militants.
However, a senior police source said “preliminary evidence points to the involvement” of the Taliban’s domestic chapter in Pakistan, which analysts say has close ties to the Afghan Taliban.
The group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has publicly denied involvement in last Tuesday’s attack.
The bombing triggered a flurry of diplomatic activity in Islamabad, eager to protect billions of dollars in investments promised by Beijing under its Belt and Road Initiative.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Chinese workers at the Dasu site yesterday and said Pakistan “will spare no effort” to ensure their safety.
“I’m not going to rest until we have the best safety measures in place,” he told workers.
“I can assure you that our powerful tools will soon catch the culprits.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
