Chinese engineer wounded in roadside blast

KARACHI: A Chinese engineer and his Pakistani driver were wounded on the outskirts of the metropolitan city on Monday in a roadside bomb attack claimed by an ethnic nationalist militant group opposed to plans for extensive Chinese investment in Sindh.

The low-intensity bomb was planted on the green belt along a road in the Gulshan-e-Hadeed neighbourhood and it was detonated as a black-coloured Hiace van (JF-7639) carrying the Chinese engineer, identified as Finche, drove past around 8:37am.

The 25-year-old Chinese engineer was travelling with his driver, Tariq Aziz, and a security guard to work at Port Qasim. “The Chinese man and his driver were slightly wounded in the attack,” said IG Sindh Allah Dino Khowaja. “Apparently, the attack was aimed at the Chinese national.”

The explosion shattered the windows of the van, and television footage showed construction helmets in a rear seat. The two men were treated for their minor wounds at a hospital in Steel Town and discharged.

Explosive experts said it was a homemade bomb weighing around 500 grams.  “It shows the terrorists had no training (a) because they used very low quantity of explosives, and (b) because they concealed the device in a cemented block,” an official of the Bomb Disposal Squad told The Express Tribune.

“It was a unidirectional bomb and a safety fuse device was used to detonate it,” he added.

At least three suspects were detained in a subsequent search operation by the paramilitary Rangers and police in Bin Qasim neighbourhood. They were driven to an undisclosed location for questioning.

Over 3,470 Chinese nationals are working on 118 projects, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), in Sindh and Balochistan. The Sindh police have already constituted a 2,000-strong special security cell for the Chinese citizens working on different projects in the province.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (Nacta) had decided last June to form special security cells in all the four provinces and orders had subsequently been conveyed to all four IGPs.

There are more Chinese citizens in Sindh, especially in Karachi, than in any other province. And keeping that in view, the special security cell in the province should be 4,000 strong, given the fluid security situation in the metropolis.

Interestingly, terrorists were aware of the movement of the Chinese engineer, while the police were unaware because he was travelling without official security.

“The Chinese engineer was targeted when he was en route to the site of SEPCO-III project where he works,” said SHO Ghulam Ahmed Shaikh.

“Foreigners frequently change their residences due to security threats without informing the police,” he added. The Chinese engineer along with nearly five others had recently shifted to a bungalow in Gulshan-e-Hadeed.

A pamphlet signed by a group called the Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army (SRA), an ethnic Sindhi separatist group, was found at the site, police said. Another religious terrorist group also claimed credit for the attack.

Investigators believe claim of responsibility by more than one group is a tactics employed by terrorist outfits to confuse investigators. “But in my opinion, the SRA carried out the attack,” said CTD in-charge Raja Omar Khattab. “All the terror groups supported by Indian spy agency RAW have connections with each other,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2016.