Monitoring Desk: Registering a blasphemy case against a Chinese transportation supervisor can trigger a new scene for Pakistan. The accused was transported to Abbottabad after the incident of registration of a case against him.
It may be remembered that a Sri Lankan engineer was lynched to death in Sialkot Pakistan under blaspheming allegations and now a case has been registered against a Chinese transportation supervisor working at the Dasu hydropower project which is part of the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor (CPEC).
The project is led by China’s Gezhouba Group construction and engineering company, reports the New York Times.
It may be remembered that Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana was a 49-year-old Sri Lankan man who was lynched by a mob on December 3, 2021, in Sialkot over allegations of blasphemy.
According to the newspaper, the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad has not yet commented on the arrest but protests were reported against a Chinese engineer in the Kohistan region of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPK). The Kohistan region is a sensitive area in reference to religious extremism and several mountaineers were killed at the base camp of Nanga Parbat in an attack of terrorism in the year 2013. On the night of June 22, 2013, about 16 militants from the Kohistan region attacked a high-altitude mountaineering base camp and killed 11 mountaineers belonging to Ukraine, China, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Nepal.
The New York Times reported that a Chinese man was identified in a Pakistani police report as “Mr. Tian” and described as a transportation supervisor. It may be mentioned that CPEC projects had faced turbulence under 42 months PTI and this latest development can hamper projects again.