Bus carrying five Chinese engineers to Dasu was not bomb-proof, says report

Police have said that as per preliminary investigation, it appeared that the bus in which five Chinese engineers were travelling on the day they were killed in a suicide attack at Besham, district Shangla in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) was not bullet or bomb-proof, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Sunday.

In their second report sent to the federal government on the incident, the police have said that a female engineer was also among those killed on that ill-fated day.

The report says that as per the image taken of the site of the incident from the air, the bus that was destroyed in the attack was 15 feet away from the second one, and that following the suicide blast the bus fell into 300-feet deep ravine.  

Five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver were killed while several others were injured when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the bus they were travelling in at Besham a week ago.

DIG Malakand Mohammad Ali Gandapur said that the engineers were on their way from Islamabad to their camp in Dasu.  

"Five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver were killed in the attack," Gandapur told media. 

Dasu – the headquarters of Upper Kohistan district – is the site of a major dam and the area had been attacked in the past.

A blast on a bus had killed 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals, in 2021.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police had reached the spot and started relief operations, Gandapur said, adding that the lives of rest of the people in the convoy had been saved.

The incident created panic and prompted the government of Pakistan to announce measures for the safety of Chinese citizens living in the country.

Reporter: Amir Shehzad