Chinese engineers thrash Pak policemen over ‘red-light’ area visit

ISLAMABAD: Videos showing Chinese engineers and other staffers attacking Pakistani policemen deployed for their security after they were stopped from going to a “red light” area without a security detail went viral on social media on Friday.

The Chinese nationals are engaged in the construction of a motorway from Bahawalpur to Faisalabad in Pakistan’s Punjab province as part of the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The videos, recorded on mobile phones and posted on social media, showed Chinese nationals abusing and attacking police officials. One video showed a Chinese national standing on the bonnet of a police van while others were punching and kicking the vehicle. Another video showed several Chinese nationals thrashing policemen and some local people.

Police officials reportedly said the Chinese engineers and other staffers wanted to leave their camp in Kabirwala tehsil of Khanewal district to visit a “red-light” area on Tuesday night. “They resorted to agitation when denied permission to leave the camp without being accompanied by security officials,” police officials at the site said.

According to officials, the Chinese engineers later cut the power supply to the police camp established within the main construction camp.

On Wednesday morning, local media reported, the Chinese workers stopped work on the project and abandoned heavy machinery and vehicles on various roads in the area. They also resorted to violence and attacked police in their camp.

Afterwards, the Chinese engineers wrote a letter to Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif claiming those police officials restrained them from performing their duties and attacked them.

They also blamed the official in charge of security of attempting to hit the Chinese workers with his vehicle. Police officials, however, said the accusations were fabricated.

Later, Rizwan Omer Gondal, the top police officer in Khanewal district, held a meeting with the protesting Chinese workers and convinced them to end their agitation and open the blocked roads.

This is not the first time that Chinese nationals in Pakistan have attacked local police. In 2016, Chinese nationals associated with the Chinese army and trained in martial arts had attacked and injured police personnel deployed for their security.

Last month, a Pakistani lawmaker had claimed that China had sent a large number of its prisoners to work as labour on CPEC development projects in Pakistan. A number of Chinese nationals have been arrested in the past in ATM fraud cases, especially in the southern port city of Karachi.