AChinese engineer working at a hydropower project in Kohistan District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan has been arrested on Sunday for ‘Insulting Allah.’
The unnamed engineer, an employee of China Gezhouba Group Company, was arrested from the Dasu hydropower project after an angry mob gathered to attack him for allegedly making blasphemous remarks during a heated argument at the workplace, a report in South China Morning Post said.
The Chinese national was detained at a police station in the remote Kohistan region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province ‘to avert a serious situation,’ the report said.
The report quoted a source as saying that the Pakistani labourers gathered outside the engineer’s office on Sunday to attack him for “insulting Allah” amid a heated conversation about the slow pace of work during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.
As the news of the blasphemy spread, hundreds of men from nearby villages in the mountainous Himalayan region gathered to block the Karakoram Highway connecting Pakistan to China to protest against the Chinese citizen.
The mob was restrained by police and paramilitary soldiers and local reports claimed that aerial warning shots were fired to prevent a riot.
The demonstrators were assured that the Chinese engineer would face legal repercussions and then the protestors dispersed after four hours.
Meanwhile, the security of the Chinese nationals working on the World Bank-financed Dasu hydropower project has been tightened.
Earlier in July 2021, nine Chinese nationals were killed, alongside four Pakistani colleagues, in a suicide bombing on a bus. The bus was carrying people, including the Chinese national, to the hydropower plant site.
In December of the same year, a Sri Lankan factory manager working in Pakistan was beaten to death and set ablaze by a mob over blasphemy accusations.
Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unproven allegations can stir mobs and violence. The crime carries punishments ranging from fines to the death penalty.