Islamabad:
Pakistan has decided to pay $2.58 million to the families of five Chinese nationals killed in March by a suicide bomber targeting their car in the country’s conflict-hit northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, media reports today said.
Five Chinese and a Pakistani driver were killed on March 26 when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into another vehicle in Bhisham district of restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province while they were heading to the Das hydroelectric power plant construction site in Kohistan district of the province.
The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of Pakistan’s cabinet decided on Thursday to pay $2.58 million to the families of the Chinese workers killed in the attack, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported.
Compensation for five Chinese workers from China Gezhouba Group (the contractor) was reportedly approved at $516,000 each as a goodwill gesture.
“The amount will be immediately transferred to the Pakistani embassy account in Beijing and paid through appropriate channels to the families of the deceased Chinese nationals,” the paper quoted a senior finance ministry official as saying.
The announcement of the compensation comes ahead of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to Beijing early next month to push ahead with the second phase of the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, which has been struggling for almost five years.
Thousands of Chinese personnel are working in Pakistan on several projects being carried out under the auspices of the so-called $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
