China has demanded a “thorough investigation” after five of its nationals and one Pakistani were killed in an attack on a convoy in Bisham tehsil of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Shangla, according to the regional police chief and a station house officer (SHO).
Reuters quoted Mohammad Ali Gandapur, the regional police chief, as saying that a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a convoy of Chinese engineers which was on its way from Islamabad to their camp in Dasu.
“Five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver were killed in the attack,” Gandapur said.The provincial police had reached the spot and launched relief operations. The rest of the people in the convoy have been protected, Gandapur said.
Bisham SHO Bakht Zahir, while talking to Dawn.com, also confirmed that the incident claimed six lives, of which five were Chinese engineers and one was a Pakistani.He said it was a “suicide blast” and the authorities concerned were collecting evidence. Security arrangements were tightened at the spot and the bodies were being shifted to a hospital, he further said.
“We will investigate from where and how the vehicle of a suicide bomber came and how it happened,” the SHO said.Rescue 1122 station head Sheraz Khan said that the bodies were being shifted to the Bisham Tehsil Headquarters Hospital.
The rescue official said that after the blast, the vehicle with the Chinese passengers fell into a gorge and caught fire. A rescue team then reached the spot and put out the fire, he added.Dr Rehmat Ali, a spokesperson at the Dasu project, told Dawn.com that the Chinese nationals were identified as four men and a woman, adding that their bodies were being taken to Islamabad.
China’s embassy demanded investigations into the attack.“The Chinese embassy and consulates in Pakistan have immediately launched emergency work, demanding that the Pakistani side conduct a thorough investigation into the attack, severely punish the perpetrators and take practical and effective measures to protect the safety of Chinese citizens,” the embassy said in a statement.
In July 2021, 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals, were killed when a coach carrying them to an under-construction tunnel site of the 4,300-megawatt Dasu hydropower project fell into a ravine in the Upper Kohistan area after an explosion.
