KARACHI: A court in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi sentenced a Chinese citizen to six years in jail for committing cyber terrorism and ATM skimming, officials told Arab News on Wednesday, informing that the judge declared another Chinese citizen as absconder in the case.
“A Chinese, named Liu Linan, has been given six years and three months in prison under three different sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PCC),” prosecutor Mirza Tanveer Hussain told Arab News, adding: “The court also slapped Rs1.2 million of fine on him.”
“One of the accused has been declared an absconder,” he continued.
Linan was arrested for using skimming devices to steal money from ATMs in the Defense area of the city in 2018.
In January this year, a sessions court in Karachi acquitted three Chinese nationals who were charged with cyber terrorism and ATM skimming due to lack of evidence.
In January 2018, however, officials of law enforcement agencies told Arab News that they believed a Chinese criminal network was skimming ATM machines in Pakistan.
Two Chinese nationals were caught by the manager of a local bank in downtown Karachi in January 2018 and handed over to the police and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
“For a moment, I thought we may face embarrassment when we were on our way to arrest them,” Salman Waheed, a police officer at the station house to which the two thieves were taken, had told Arab News back then. “We are usually expected to help and protect Chinese nationals in Pakistan.”
China is Pakistan’s major regional ally and the opening of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has seen an influx of Chinese nationals into the country.
In ATM skimming, hidden electronic devices are attached to automated teller machines which steal personal information from cards inserted into a fake reader placed over the machine’s actual card slot.
Pakistani court sentences Chinese citizen to six years in prison
https://arab.news/yu2bs
Pakistani court sentences Chinese citizen to six years in prison
- The court also slapped a fine of Rs1.2 million on Liu Linan
- One Chinese national has been declared absconder in the case
Tens of thousands flee northwest Pakistan over fears of military operation
- More than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled remote Tirah region bordering Afghanistan
- Government says no military operation underway or planned in Tirah, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
BARA, Pakistan: More than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled a remote region in northwestern Pakistan bordering Afghanistan over uncertainty of a military operation against the Pakistani Taliban, residents and officials said Tuesday.
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif has denied the claim by residents and provincial authorities. He said no military operation was underway or planned in Tirah, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Speaking at a news conference in Islamabad, he said harsh weather, rather than military action, was driving the migration. His comments came weeks after residents started fleeing Tirah over fears of a possible army operation.
The exodus began a month after mosque loudspeakers urged residents to leave Tirah by Jan. 23 to avoid potential fighting. Last August, Pakistan launched a military operation against Pakistani Taliban in the Bajau r district in the northwest, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
Shafi Jan, a spokesman for the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, posted on X that he held the federal government responsible for the ordeal of the displaced people, saying authorities in Islamabad were retracting their earlier position about the military operation.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Suhail Afridi, whose party is led by imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has criticized the military and said his government will not allow troops to launch a full-scale operation in Tirah.
The military says it will continue intelligence-based operations against Pakistani Taliban, who are known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Though a separate group, it has been emboldened since the Afghan
Taliban returned to power in 2021. Authorities say many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuary in Afghanistan and that hundreds of them have crossed into Tirah, often using residents as human shields when militant hideouts are raided.
Caught in the middle are the residents of Tirah, who continued arriving in Bara.
So far, local authorities have registered roughly 10,000 families — about 70,000 people — from Tirah, which has a population of around 150,000, said Talha Rafiq Alam, a local government administrator overseeing the relief effort. He said the registration deadline, originally set for Jan. 23, has been extended to Feb. 5.
He said the displaced would be able to return once the law-and-order situation improves.
Among those arriving in Bara and nearby towns was 35-year-old Zar Badshah, who said he left with his wife and four children after the authorities ordered an evacuation. He said mortar shells had exploded in villages in recent weeks, killing a woman and wounding four children in his village. “Community elders told us to leave. They instructed us to evacuate to safer places,” he said.
At a government school in Bara, hundreds of displaced lined up outside registration centers, waiting to be enrolled to receive government assistance. Many complained the process was slow.
Narendra Singh, 27, said members of the minority Sikh community also fled Tirah after food shortages worsened, exacerbated by heavy snowfall and uncertain security.
“There was a severe shortage of food items in Tirah, and that forced us to leave,” he said.
Tirah gained national attention in September, after an explosion at a compound allegedly used to store bomb-making materials killed at least 24 people. Authorities said most of the dead were militants linked to the TTP, though local leaders disputed that account, saying civilians, including women and children, were among the dead.
