KARACHI: Niaz Muhammad, a clothes trader from Quetta, had begun feeling his age. So to hand down the family business he would take his 26-year-old son, Muhammad Zahir Shah, on international business visits. 
Muhammad, who previously traveled to to Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong for work, was mostly visiting China to buy clothes for his Quetta outlets. 
The father and son duo died in an attack on the Chinese consulate on Friday in Karachi.
“This was not the first time my brother was taking Zahir Shah along with him on a China trip. It was probably the third. But none of us knew this would be their last,” said family member Habib-ur-Rehman.
“He wanted Shah to be trained for his business. My brother would say, ‘I have become older, I need rest.’ 
“He’s resting in peace but his wish of training his son couldn’t be fulfilled,” Rehman said, with gloom and despair in his voice. 
Rehman said his brother and nephew left for Karachi by road on Thursday morning and stayed overnight in the southern port city. 
“They ate their last breakfast together and then hurried to the Chinese consulate in Clifton, where they were supposed to meet their travel agent and register their fingerprints.”
“We don’t know if the agent was late or he had already entered the consulate, but death was waiting for them as soon as they got there. Death was telling them their next destination was not Beijing,” he said. 
Rehman said Zahir Shah was his father’s best friend and that he was never seen with others in the streets, hotels or restaurants. He would always be accompanied by his father. 
“Their bond was so strong that they lived together and, together, left this world for eternal peace,” Rehman said.
Zahir Shah was the eldest of seven and married four years ago. “He has two daughters, the elder one, about two and half, was very much attached to her father. She must be really missing her father.”
Rehman complained that, while people were lining up to praise the police, the bodies of his loved ones were laying in Karachi for twelve long hours. 
“The Sindh government didn’t even provide us the ambulance for bringing them to Quetta. No one from the Balochistan government has visited us so far. It seems that the policemen were Pakistanis and we are aliens.”
The First Information Report of the consulate attack has been registered at the Counter Terrorism Department’s police station. There are terror charges against Hyrbyair Marri, a London-based and self-exiled separatist leader, and senior leaders of the Baloch Liberation Army.
“Behind this attack were their masterminds, facilitators and directors including Hyrbyair Marri, Aslam Achho alias Meeraq Baloch, Bashir Zeb, Noor Bux Mengal, Kareem Marri, Captain Rehman Gul, Commander Nisar, Commander Gandi, Commander Shekho, Commander Sharif, Commander Hamal, Commander Munshi, Agha Sher Dil and others,” reads the FIR.
According to police the Fedayeen Sarbaz of Majeed Brigade of the BLA, which enjoys the support of India’s intelligence agency RAW, has claimed responsibility for the attack. 
The BLA published the identities of the attackers: Azal Khan, Raziq Baloch and Raees Baloch. The FIR says one of the attackers, already mentioned in the BLA claim, has been identified as Abdul Raziq, an employee of the agricultural engineering department in Balochistan’s Kharan district.
The police report calls the Friday assault “an unsuccessful and shameful effort to damage Pak-China relations.”
China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Yao Jing, called on the Sindh Chief Minister on Saturday. “He expressed profound grief over the loss of life of two policemen and two passers-by,” according to Rasheed Channa, spokesman of the provincial government.
The chief minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, said police had been instructed to conduct a security audit. “We are also working to complete safe city project on war footings,” he said.
Forces deployed at the Sindh-Balochistan border have been ordered to strengthen their security and checking systems.
No Chinese nationals were hurt in the attack. 
Prime Minister Imran Khan described the assault as a “conspiracy against the China Pakistan Economic Corridor.”