ISI likely using Beijing for its own strategic objectives

The death of Chinese workers in Pak is likely to force Beijing to ask Kabul to take stringent action against the TTP, which is exactly what Islamabad wants.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

Sometime between 31 March and 1 April, a report was submitted by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), which works under the direct supervision of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to the Pakistan Prime Minister’s office which was also shared with the Chinese embassy in Islamabad.

The report was prepared by officials investigating the 26 March attack on a bus carrying 5 Chinese workers by a suicide bomber, who rammed his car into the bus at Bisham block, Shangla district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPK).
These workers were going from Islamabad to Dasu, where Pakistan’s biggest hydropower project is being developed by China as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) under its Belt and Road Initiative.

The CTD has claimed that the terror attack was carried out by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and added that they had arrested at least 12 terrorists including the main facilitator, Hazrat Bilal, who, the CTD claimed, had brought the suicide bomber to be used in the attack from Afghanistan.
The TTP, which as a matter of practice is quick to take responsibility for any terror attack that it carries out, has denied being involved in the attack.

‘FALSE CLAIMS’

According to CTD’s findings, the explosives-laden vehicle was bought for Rs 0.25 million from Afghanistan and then driven to Chaman city located at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
From there it was taken to Dara Zinda town in Dera Ismail Khan district. From DI Khan, it was driven to Bisham in KPK. The CTD has further claimed that no custom duty was paid on the vehicle while bringing it from Afghanistan to Pakistan and it was parked at a petrol station in Chaman for Rs 500 per day, for at least 10 days, awaiting its driver.