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Pakistan uses army to protect projects with Chinese workers after Dasu bus blast

  • As authorities hunt down the culprits in the July 14 suicide attack, they are increasing security across all developments with Chinese workers
  • No militant group has taken responsibility for the bombing, which happened in a region not known to have terrorist activity

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A screen-grab image from security cameras of the Honda City that was supposedly used in the suicide attack in Dasu, Pakistan on July 14. Photo: Handout
Tom Hussainin IslamabadandUmar Bachain Besham
Two weeks after a bus blast in northern Pakistan killed 12 people, including nine Chinese nationals, Pakistani security authorities are hunting for two people and the silver Toyota Corolla car they were driving.

The pair are thought to have coordinated with a suicide bomber who rammed an explosives-laden silver Honda City car into one of two buses on its way to dam worksites near the remote town of Dasu on July 14.

The buses, each carrying more than 30 people, were being escorted by two vehicles belonging to paramilitary forces and were heading to the World Bank-funded Dasu hydropower project being constructed by China Gezhouba Group Corp (CGGC).

Counterterrorism police in the eastern city of Lahore on Wednesday said they had detained two brothers from Pakistan’s western Balochistan province in connection with the Dasu attack. This came as counterterrorism authorities and the Pakistan military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency were questioning another two men in Dasu, a small but busy town in the mountainous region of Kohistan.

The ISI is leading Islamabad’s efforts in a joint investigation with Chinese authorities, and is coordinating the country’s provincial police forces.

But interviews with about nine officials and influential members of the community in Dasu, who asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons or because they were not authorised to speak to media, did not indicate any connection between the detentions in Lahore and the silver Toyota Corolla the authorities are looking for.

The two people detained in Dasu included a local resident employed by China Gezhouba who has since been released after questioning. The second person, an Afghan national who had been seen begging in Dasu days before the attack, is still in custody.

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