Lahore: A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has sent a Chinese national to jail on a 14-day judicial remand on blasphemy charges in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province after he was arrested earlier this week, according to media reports.
Tian was booked on blasphemy charges and sent to prison on a 14-day judicial remand by an Abbottabad anti-terrorism court, the Dawn newspaper reported.
The Chinese citizen, a manager at the Dasu Hydropower Project, the biggest hydropower project in Pakistan, in the Upper Kohistan district of the province, allegedly made blasphemous remarks when the workers were going to perform the Friday prayer.
According to local people, the Chinese manager complained to workers at the dam that “precious time” was being lost due to prayer breaks. The Dasu Hydropower Project is a major venture under the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CEPC).
“We have arrested the foreigner suspect under blasphemy and terrorism charges and airlifted him from here to present him before the anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Abbottabad,” District Police Officer (DPO) Upper Kohistan, Mohammad Khalid, was quoted as saying in the report.
The police registered a first information report (FIR) against Tian at the Dasu police station, hours after hundreds of residents and laborers working on the dam project blocked a key highway and rallied, demanding his arrest.
Under Pakistan’s tough blasphemy laws, the offence carries the death penalty. The Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), in a report in January 2022, stated that as many as 89 citizens were killed in 1,415 accusations and cases of blasphemy in the country since independence.
