KARACHI: Police in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province said on Thursday they had arrested a hit-man who was planning to kill a Chinese doctor in Hyderabad, saying he belonged to the same group that had in September gunned down a man at a dental clinic in Karachi.
Chinese nationals have been targeted by Baloch separatist militants in recent years, and their attacks have picked up pace recently — most notably an attack on Chinese teachers at Karachi University earlier this year.
The separatists have warned the government of China that its nationals would be targeted if they did not withdraw commercial activities in the southwestern province of Balochistan, which the militants want to secede from Pakistan.
China has large stakes in Pakistan, especially Balochistan where it is developing the deep sea port of Gwadar as part of the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project of energy, infrastructure and agricultural schemes.
“The CTD [counter terrorism department] has thwarted a bid to target a Chinese doctor in Hyderabad,” a police handout said.
The CTD identified the suspect as Muhammad Afzal Lund alias Aafi from the Gulistan-e-Jauhar area of Karachi.
“During interrogation, the accused confessed that he was in contact with the group’s Germany-based leader Zulfiqar Khaskheli, who was providing financial support, with which he had purchased a motorcycle and weapon,” the statement said.
Khaskheli had given the accused the target to attack a Chinese dental clinic in Hyderabad.
“He had completed reconnaissance but was arrested before he could target the doctor,” the statement said, saying Lund was associated with the suspect in the September killing at the Karachi dental clinic.
In that attack, an armed man posing as a patient shot dead Ronald Raimond Chao and injured Dr. Richard Hu, 50, and his wife Margaret Hu, 45 inside a Chinese clinic in Karachi that the couple was running.
Deputy Inspector General of Police for the Counter Terrorism Department, Asif Aijaz Shaikh, told media at the time Dr. Richard and his wife were dual nationals living in Karachi for at least four decades.
The Chinese foreign minister, however, rejected reports that the man gunned down was a Chinese national.
“The terrorists who are against CPEC want to target anything with the name Chinese but their evil designs will be thwarted,” CTD official Mazhar Mashwani said.