Chinese national accused of blasphemy in Pakistan denies charges

Islamabad, April 19 A Chinese national taken into custody in Pakistan after a mob accused him of committing blasphemy said he never made any remarks that could hurt religious sentiments.

The Chinese citizen, who was being kept at Police Lines in Abbottabad after the district administration declared the premises a sub-jail and beefed up its security, said he was arrested under trumped-up charges, Dawn reported.

"I can't even contemplate offending sentiments of Pakistanis and Muslims but whatever I have been facing here is nothing but a lie," he told a Joint Investigation Team (JIT), constituted by the government to investigate the matter, as this was apparently the third attempt to sabotage the 3,420-megawatt Dasu hydropower project.

The JIT has already probed the 2021 attack on a bus carrying Chinese nationals to the dam sites that claimed the lives of 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals, as well as a blaze that broke out a Chinese workers' residential camp earlier this month.

The team was now investigating the latest episode.

Sources privy to the interrogation said that the Chinese national picked up on a blasphemy charge would probably be produced before an anti-terrorism court in Abbottabad, Dawn reported.

On the other hand, the police team investigating the case grilled the interpreter, Mohammad Yasir, on whose testimony the FIR was lodged.

The interpreter told the police team that he was ‘doubtful' of what sacrilegious remarks the Chinese man had uttered.

He also claimed that labourers who accompanied him during the incident that led to the alleged blasphemy were compelling him (Yasir) to stand firm on his previous stance, Dawn reported.

Meanwhile, Chinese engineers and workers resumed work at the project site.