ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday directed authorities to increase the security of Chinese residents and institutions in the country, following a suicide bombing attack on Tuesday that killed three Chinese nationals.
The development comes a day after a deadly suicide bombing in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi on Tuesday that killed at least four people. Among them, three were Chinese nationals.
The explosion ripped through a van carrying the Chinese at the Karachi University’s campus around 2:00p.m. local time. The attac was claimed by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army, an outlawed group that frequently conducts attacks on Pakistan’s security forces.
The BLA revealed that a woman suicide bomber carried out the attack.
Chinese targets have frequently been attacked by separatists from Balochistan, where Beijing is involved in huge infrastructure projects as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.
This latest attack is also the first big challenge for newly elected PM Sharif, who visited the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad on Tuesday and met Chinese Charge d’Affaires Pang Chunxue to express his grief and condolences over the deaths of Chinese nationals.
“Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif also directed to increase the security of Chinese residents and institutions in Pakistan and make them foolproof. He reassured that no effort would be spared to bring these criminals to justice,” a statement from the PM Office said.
PM Sharif condemned the “incident of terrorism in the strongest words and was determined to eradicate all forms of terrorism and terrorists from Pakistani soil.”
He assured that the incident would be investigated expeditiously and the country would make an example out of the culprits behind this horrific attack.
The prime minister also directed Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah to visit Karachi on Wednesday and pledged that “he won’t rest until these murderers of Chinese Nationals were arrested and hanged till death.”
“Pak-China friendship has been attacked, we will deal with it with full force,” interior minister Sanaullah said in a statement on Wednesday adding “we will review all security apparatus for Chinese residents and take effective measures after a thorough review of security.”
Beijing has pledged over $60 billion for infrastructure projects in Pakistan under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor framework that is a central part of China’s initiative to forge new “Silk Road” land and sea ties to markets in the Middle East and Europe.
