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

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Vehicles used to transport Chinese workers to the Dasu Hydropower Project in Pakistan’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province are seen following an attack in 2021 that left nine Chinese nationals dead. Photo: Xinhua

Tom Hussainin IslamabadandUmar Bachain Besham

Published: 10:32am, 17 Apr 2023Updated: 6:36pm, 17 Apr 2023

Police in northern Pakistan have launched prosecution proceedings against a Chinese engineer after an angry mob gathered to attack him for allegedly making blasphemous remarks during a workplace argument with his Pakistani subordinates.

The engineer, identified in a formal complaint to the police by two Pakistani dumpster drivers as “Mr Tian, in-charge of heavy machinery” for China Gezhouba Group Company at the Dasu hydropower project, will now face a formal police investigation, leading in due course to his indictment by a magistrate’s court.

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.

In their complaint to the police, the two drivers claimed Tian “insulted Allah and the Prophet Mohammed” during a heated conversation about their belated return from prayers while on duty during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, said the source, who was involved in the arrest.