AFTER the Bisham attack on the Chinese engineers, Chinese companies working in Pakistan have suspended civil work on all projects, including Dasu, Tarbela, and Diamir Bhasha dams. As many as 500 Chinese engineers and workers were involved in the Dasu hydropower project. All Chinese companies have instructed their staff to stay indoors until further orders. At Bisham, a heavily explosives-laden vehicle collided with an unfortunate bus, resulting in the deaths of five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver. The impact of the explosion was so strong that the bus caught fire and fell into a deep gorge, leaving all onboard burnt to ashes. Due to the Bisham attack, work on the dam has been immediately halted. The Dasu Dam, with over 741 Chinese and 6,000 Pakistani workers, aimed at generating 4320 MW of electricity. Additionally, the completion of the Diamar Bhasha Dam will yield 4800 MW. Another project, the Mohmand Dam, involves 2500 Chinese engineers and workers and aims to generate 740 MW while irrigating over 15,000 acres of land and aiding flood prevention efforts.
Prior to Bisham attack, on July 2021 the Chinese Gizuba Group Company suspended operations after a suicide attack near the Dasu Hydropower Plant in Upper Kohistan. Then 13 people including 9 Chinese engineers and 2 FC officials were killed in that attack. After that incident, the Chinese company issued a letter on July 16 and terminated the contracts of all the Pakistanis working on the project. After the recent Basham attack this time, the situation on the dam may worsen again. Anti-prosperity, anti-development and anti-Pakistan elements have intensified their activities following the formation of Pakistan’s new government. They recognize that both Pakistan and China are accelerating development work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, hence the rise in terrorist attacks in KP and Balochistan. It’s imperative for Pakistan to crush these elements and protect its alliance with China. CPEC serves as Pakistan’s economic lifeline and terrorists aim to disrupt it. The nation stands united with its forces, led by Army Chief General Asim Munir, who has vowed to eradicate terrorism completely.
Pakistan has suffered excessively from the social, economic and human costs due to terrorism. Pakistan is portrayed as being on the front line in the international war against terrorism. At the same time has been wrongly labelled as a sponsor of international terrorism. Rather over the decades Pakistan has been victim of the worst level of terrorism. Terrorism in Pakistan is a multidimensional phenomenon and, among many precipitating factors, Indian and Afghan factors are playing an important role. India-Afghanistan nexus and enmity is very active against Pakistan-China friendship and development. The CPEC projects and Chinese experts are their main targets. The CPEC guarantee stable economy and bright future of Pakistan and China. This is what India and Afghanistan don’t want to see. Afghanistan shares border with Central Asian States, Pakistan and China but it has developed conflicts with Pakistan only. No doubt Afghanistan is leading exporter of illiteracy, narcotics and terrorism. Notorious terrorist organizations like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, and the TTP have established safe havens in different parts of Afghanistan, with the TTP operating in the region as a proxy for both India and the Afghan Taliban.
On the other hand, China fears infiltration of terrorists of East Turkistan Islamic Movement from Afghanistan to Xinjiang Province of China. All these outfits enjoy blessings of Afghan Taliban government. To bring peace in the region Pakistan and China will have to break evil nexus of India and Afghanistan. We can’t rule out Indian involvement in recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan, especially the Bisham incident. Pakistan and China should jointly probe the incident and go for hot pursuit against the perpetrators. National level elections in India are couple of weeks away. India is our eternal enemy. Narendra Modi believes in polarization and hatred against Pakistan. Always before the elections, Indian sponsored terrorist attacks are increased in Pakistan. China has strongly condemned the attack on the engineers who were working on Dasu dam and demanded a thorough investigation of the attack. The convoy of the Chinese engineers, on its way from Islamabad to their camp in Dasu, was attacked in Bisham tehsil of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Shangla district. The elements hostile to Pakistan will never succeed in harming Pak-China friendship. The Bisham incident and other recent terrorist attacks in Turbat and Gwadar were dastardly acts aimed at destabilising the internal security situation. The whole nation stands in solidarity with our Chinese brothers and unequivocally condemns this barbarism. The terrorists want to damage the fraternal relations of both Pakistan and China through their heinous attacks, which we won’t tolerate to happen again. Pakistan will do everything possible to crush the masterminds, perpetrators and the enablers and handlers of this act with iron hands.
—The writer is editor, book ambassador political analyst and author of several books based in Islamabad.
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