“I had just finished my afternoon prayers and was sitting with my mother, when the explosion happened,” says Alibash Khan, referring to the March 26 suicide attack on a vehicle, killing five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver, near the city of Bisham, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Khan heard the rumbling sound from his village of Basi not far from the site.

The Chinese workers were on their way from Islamabad to the under-construction 4,320 megawatt Dasu Hydropower Project (DHPP) on the Indus River, in Kohistan district of KP – about 270km north of Islamabad. Some seven Chinese companies are working on the project, funded by the World Bank. The Chinese workers killed were employees of China Gezhouba Group.

A video footage taken from another vehicle that day, shows the Chinese engineers were travelling in a convoy of three vehicles, with the bus sandwiched in the middle. At a bend in the road, an oncoming vehicle, rammed into the bus and detonated.

“It was laden with explosives and the impact was so huge it pushed the bus, that had caught fire, into a 300-feet deep ravine,” explained Inspector Bakht Zahir, head of the local Bisham police station, also among the first to reach the scene. The vehicle in front of the bus and the second bus, carrying another eight Chinese workers behind it, remained unharmed. Investigations confirm the bus transporting the foreign nationals was neither bulletproof, nor bombproof, both of which were a strict security requirement.

“After extinguishing the fire, the Rescue 1122 team and the local community went down and retrieved three charred bodies as well as body parts of the other three. “Postmortems were performed, coffins arranged, and the bodies were put in ambulances and sent to Islamabad, which is a good three hours from here,” said Inspector Zahir. “All in all, I would say, it took a good seven hours from the time the incident happened till the bodies reached Islamabad,” he said. Among the dead was a Chinese woman.

This was the second attack on Chinese workers in this area. In 2021, a bomb attack on a bus killed 13 people, nine of them Chinese, working in the same company.

A spate of attacks

In Pakistan, terrorist attacks are often organized by two insurgent groups — the Islamists and the other by Baloch militants seeking secession.

On March 20, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) attacked the Gwadar Port Authority complex near the Gwadar port, a flagship project under the $65 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Five days later, on March 25, the BLA attacked a naval base in Turbat, a city neighboring Gwadar.

The third was the Bisham attack on March 26.

But what differentiates the two attacks in Balochistan from the attack in KP, according to journalist Zia Ur Rehman, is that the former were readily claimed by the secessionist group, which sees Islamabad as exploiter of the province’s resources and China its partner in the looting.

But for the Bisham attack, no group has come forward to own responsibility, just like for the attack in 2021, he said.

Rehman, who has been covering conflict in the region, said its “seems to be the handiwork of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)”, which is operating from Afghanistan and is “in the protection of the Taliban government”.

Rehman also gave several possibilities for the attacks on Chinese workers in Pakistan.

“It could be a message to show solidarity with other like-minded groups (e.g. East Turkestan Islamic Movement or ETIM, the Muslim separatist group founded by militant Uyghurs),” he said. “It may also be to tell the world that Pakistan is not a safe place for any foreigner, especially for the Chinese and their interests,” he added.

Security for Chinese workers

A week after the Bisham attack, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, accompanied by Chinese ambassador Jiang Zaidong visited Dasu to pay his condolences to the Chinese working there. He said it was his government’s responsibility to protect the Chinese who had come to help Pakistan develop and promised them fool-proof security.

“I want to assure you that the government of Pakistan will not leave any stone unturned, will not leave any effort, will not spare any opportunity to ensure you get the best possible security for your families and yourself and that nothing will be left to chance in the future,” said Sharif, speaking to the Chinese engineers in Dasu.

Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, talking to me over the phone from Islamabad, admitted: “Precautions being taken were not enough and security needs to be foolproof and ironclad especially at and around vulnerable and sensitive installations.”   

“Providing foolproof security to all Chinese workers is a huge challenge,” said Rehman. “This was a huge security lapse,” he pointed out.

“A huge number of Chinese workers, both working on CPEC and non- CPEC projects, are scattered across Pakistan and in some extremely remote and difficult-to-access areas, including the DHPP,” said Rehman. “Providing security to each worker is not only a logistical challenge but  requires huge financial resources,” he added.

However, he said, “The Chinese companies and government are well aware of the security risk they are undertaking while working in Pakistan”.

Experts have alluded to Chinese financial support to train and equip two Special Security Divisions (SSDs), the 34 and 44 Light Infantry Divisions, with 15,000 troops each (34 set up in September 2016, and 44 in 2020). But due to secrecy surrounding this, there is no public document to confirm this.

The Pakistan Navy has set up a Coastal Security and Harbour Defence Force to tackle security threats along the coast and stationed a Force Protection Battalion, consisting of Pakistan Marines at Gwadar for the protection of Chinese companies and workers.

Both the 44 Light Division and the FPB have their presence in Gwadar.

Commiserations followed by admissions of negligence and then promises to ensure the safety of all Chinese working in Pakistan has become a routine after every attack.

It seems that Beijing is getting tired of this rhetoric and has demanded a thorough probe. In response to this request, Pakistan has formed a joint investigation team with Chinese officials.

Already there is some progress. The defense minister told me: “We do have substantive proof narrowing our investigation, but it will be premature to comment.”

The seriousness in tackling terrorism can be gauged by the fact that the PM has taken it upon himself to review monthly meetings on the overall security of the country and particularly the security of Chinese working on development projects.

Local implications

Following the deadly attack in Bisham, the Chinese construction company temporarily halted work at DHPP, letting go of some 6,000 workers. Chinese companies also suspended civil works at two other dam projects: Diamer–Bhasha and the 1,530 MW Tarbela 5th Extension Hydropower Project   temporarily laying off over 2,000 workers for five days.

Hamza Malik (name changed on request) is among the 6,000 Pakistani workers at the DHPP, who was laid off following the attack on the Chinese. “I really need this work,” said the 34-year-old man who has a master’s degree, a rarity in Kohistan, where the literacy rate is amongst the lowest in Pakistan. “There is little employment opportunity in our region, so whatever comes our way, is happily accepted,” said Malik, adding: “The pay is good at Rs 40,000 (USD 143) per month and comes to Rs 60,000 ($215) when I do overtime.”

Thankfully, Malik has been called back to resume his duty after 23 days on April 18. “We will be paid our previous salary (which is never paid on time) but not for the days when the work was shut at the project site,” he said.

A senior Pakistani supervisor at DHPP, talking over phone, but requesting his name be withheld as he is not permitted to speak to the media, confirmed that work has resumed.  “It will take some time for the work to reach the level it had when it stopped,” he said.

But it is not just the thousands of laborers who get adversely affected by sudden closures in this region. “From the barbers to the roadside café and restaurant owners, to those selling fresh produce and transporters, everyone’s livelihood is in some way or the other connected to the project,” said Khan, the villager from Basi, who makes a decent living from his four-acre growing maize, wheat and persimmon.

He adds that, while the locals have no direct contact with the Chinese, they tend to see them as hard working and good for the district.

These attacks can prove to be a real litmus test for the Pakistan-China friendship, say observers. However, Ambassador Sohail Mahmood, former foreign secretary and currently the director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, an Islamabad-based think-tank, did not think these terrorist attacks would put a dent on the “all-weather strategic cooperative partnership” between the two countries. “While the loss of precious lives is profoundly disconcerting, I do not think the terrorists can succeed either in shaking the resolve of Islamabad and Beijing to protect CPEC or in weakening their commitment to this relationship,” he said.

Zofeen T. Ebrahim is a Karachi-based independent journalist. For the past several years, she has been following developments of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor closely.