Pakistan condemns 'act of terrorism' after blast kills Confucius Institute official, 3 others in Karachi
Three Chinese nationals were among four people killed in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi on Tuesday, when the van carrying them exploded.
Police officials said two Chinese men and a Chinese woman were killed in the explosion near the University of Karachi's Confucius Institute. China's network of Confucius Institutes in universities around the world offer a form of cultural outreach and Chinese language teaching overseas.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Majeed Brigade, the suicide squad of the Baloch Liberation Army - an ethnic Baloch separatist group responsible for several recent attacks on Chinese nationals working in Pakistan.
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A spokesman for the University of Karachi identified the Chinese victims as Huang Guiping, the director of the institute, and Ding Mufang, a lecturer.
A third Chinese national named Chen Sa was killed along with the van's Pakistani driver. Another Chinese national, Wang Yuqing, was injured, the university spokesman said, without offering details.
The Chinese Embassy in Pakistan confirmed the deaths of three Chinese teachers in what it called a terrorist attack, saying an additional teacher was injured.
"The Chinese embassy and consulates in Pakistan strongly condemn this terrorist act, express deep condolences to the victims of the two countries and sincere condolences to the injured and their relatives, and will make every effort to deal with the incident along with the Pakistani side," a statement on the embassy website said.
The embassy asked Pakistan "to make every effort to treat the wounded, conduct a thorough investigation of the attack, and severely punish the perpetrator." It called on Pakistan to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens in the country.
Televised images of the van showed one side of it had been shredded by an explosion.
Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon said closed-circuit television footage from the site showed a person dressed in a burka walking up to the van, followed by an instantaneous explosion.
"We were having a meeting at the dean's office when we heard the deafening blast," said Naeema Saeed, a professor at the criminology department of the university.
"It seemed that the roof was falling or the earth was torn. We all rushed outside. We looked around and saw smoke rising."
The Majeed Brigade said the attack was carried out by a woman identified as Shari Baloch - the first such instance of a female suicide bomber since an insurgency broke out in western Balochistan province in 2005.
Chinese targets have regularly been attacked by separatists in Balochistan province, where Beijing is involved in huge infrastructure projects as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.
Separatists have long harboured resentment against lucrative mining and energy projects in the region, saying locals do not see the benefits.
A three-man Majeed Brigade suicide squad was shot dead by police when they tried to raid the Chinese consulate in Karachi in November 2018.
The group also carried out a narrowly averted suicide bombing attack in August 2021 on a vehicle carrying Chinese nationals working at the port of Gwadar. A Chinese national was wounded in that attack - with two children killed.
Tuesday's incident represents the largest loss of Chinese lives in Pakistan since last July, when nine employees of China Gezhouba were killed in an unclaimed vehicular suicide attack in northern Pakistan.
Apart from the attacks last year and on Tuesday, a This Week in Asia tally found that at least nine other Chinese nationals have been killed in various militant attacks in Pakistan since 2004, when three engineers working on the construction of the Chinese-funded Gwadar deep water port loss their lives following a car bombing there.
Abdul Basit, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said Tuesday's attack "constitutes the continuation and expansion of suicide terrorism in Pakistan", particularly against the US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Chinese nationals in Pakistan.
He described the success of the suicide bomber as "a huge security lapse" because the incident took place close to a canteen operated by the paramilitary Rangers unit assigned to provide security to the Chinese nationals working at the Confucius Institute.
New Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who took office two weeks ago, on Tuesday denounced the incident in a statement on Twitter.
"I am deeply grieved on the loss of precious lives including of our Chinese friends in the heinous attack in Karachi today," he said. "My heartfelt condolences go to the bereaved families. I strongly condemn this cowardly act of terrorism. The perpetrators will surely be brought to justice."
Additional reporting by AP, AFP
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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