World News | Pakistan to Perform DNA Testing on the Remains of the Suicide Bomber Who Killed 5 Chinese Nationals
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Pakistani authorities will perform DNA testing on the remains of the suicide bomber who rammed his explosive-laden car into a vehicle in the country's northwest, killing five Chinese nationals and their local driver, officials said Wednesday.
Peshawar, Mar 27 (AP) Pakistani authorities will perform DNA testing on the remains of the suicide bomber who rammed his explosive-laden car into a vehicle in the country's northwest, killing five Chinese nationals and their local driver, officials said Wednesday.
The attack occurred in Shangla, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where thousands of Chinese nationals work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which includes a multitude of megaprojects such as road construction, power plants and agriculture. The CPEC is a lifeline for Pakistan's cash-strapped government, currently facing one of its worst economic crises.
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The five were engineers and laborers heading Tuesday to the Dasu Dam, the biggest hydropower project in Pakistan, where they worked. Their remains were transported to the capital, Islamabad, local police official Altaf Khan said, adding that the deceased had a police escort when the attack happened.
Pakistani officials said they shared the latest investigation developments with their Chinese counterparts. China is expected to send its own experts Wednesday to the attack site to conduct an independent investigation while collaborating with Pakistani authorities.
Khan also said they have further expanded a search started a day earlier to look for the attacker's possible accomplices.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on separatists as well as a breakaway Gul Bahadur faction of Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, and is a separate group, but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.
The TTP denied being behind the suicide bombing in a statement Wednesday, saying: "We are in no way related to the attack on the Chinese engineers.”
The Chinese foreign ministry condemned the attack and offered “deep condolences to the deceased” in a statement Wednesday.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif promised a swift conclusion to the investigation during a visit with the Chinese ambassador, Jiang Zaidong, on Tuesday.
Zaidong, accompanied by Pakistani officials, visited the Dasu dam Wednesday, according to a statement by Pakistan's government. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)