Chinese engineer arrested in Pakistan for ‘insulting Allah’ in Ramadan row, provoking angry mob
- The employee of China Gezhouba Group Company stands accused of blasphemy following a heated dispute about the slow pace of work during Ramadan
- A source involved in the arrest said scores of infuriated Pakistani labourers descended on a Chinese work camp, apparently intent on attacking the man

Tian was detained by police late on Sunday from a residential camp for Chinese workers near Dasu, about 350km north of Islamabad, “to avert a serious situation”, a member of the local citizen-police liaison committee told This Week in Asia, on condition of anonymity.
Armed police intervened and fired aerial warning shots after a charged mob of several hundred people, chanting death threats against Tian, gathered outside the residential camp and began pelting it with stones, said the source, who was involved in the arrest.
As news of the worker’s alleged blasphemy spread to nearby villages in the mountainous Himalayan region, hundreds of men gathered to blockade the Karakoram highway, the sole overland road connecting Pakistan to China.
The protesters dispersed last night after about four hours, once officials had assured community leaders that legal action would be taken against the Chinese engineer.