ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s senior civil and military leadership on Sunday paid their respects to the Chinese nationals killed last week in the country’s northwest in a militant attack, the army’s media wing said, vowing to bring the perpetrators and facilitators of the attack to justice.
Five Chinese nationals and their Pakistan driver were killed last Tuesday in Shangla, located in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when a bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into their vehicle.
On behalf of Pakistan’s president, prime minister, army chief, chairman joint chiefs of staff committee and air chief, floral wreaths were placed at the Nur Khan Airbase in Pakistan’s eastern city of Rawalpindi during a ceremony. A silence for thirty seconds was also observed for the slain Chinese nationals.
“The Government of Pakistan strongly condemns this heinous act of terrorism and will take all necessary steps to bring the terrorists and their facilitators to justice,” a statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.
The attack occurred in an area vital to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which encompasses various mega projects crucial for Pakistan’s economy. The victims were en route to Dasu Dam, Pakistan’s largest hydropower project, when they were targeted.
No group had claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion was likely to fall on separatists and the breakaway Gul Bahadur faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, and is a separate group, but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.
The TTP denied being behind the suicide bombing in a statement Wednesday, saying: “We are in no way related to the attack on the Chinese engineers.”
Tuesday’s attack came less than a week after Pakistani security forces killed eight Balochistan Liberation Army separatists who opened fire on a convoy carrying Chinese citizens outside the Chinese-funded Gwadar port in the volatile southwestern Balochistan province.
