The Foreign Office (FO) on Monday said that the verdict in the 2021 Dasu bus attack case had demonstrated Pakistan\u2019s \u201cabiding commitment to counter terrorism\u201d.
\nThe statement from FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch comes days after an anti-terrorism court in Hazara awarded a death sentence to two men after convicting them for planning the attack.
\nMohammad Hussain and Mohammad Ayaz of Matta tehsil in Swat district were charged with planning the bus bombing, which killed 13 people, including nine Chinese workers on July 14, 2021.
\nResponding to a question at a weekly press briefing today, Baloch said that the FO had noted the judgment passed by the relevant court and the details released by the local police.
\n\u201cWhile specific queries may be directed to the relevant authorities, the proactive investigation, prosecution, and judgment in this case have once again demonstrated Pakistan\u2019s abiding commitment to counterterrorism,\u201d she said.
\nThe spokesperson extended deepest condolences to the victims\u2019 families and promised that Pakistan remains committed to the safety and security of Chinese workers, projects, and institutions in the country.
\n\u201cThe ironclad Pakistan-China All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership will never be undermined by hostile forces,\u201d Baloch vowed.
\nThe attack
\nThirteen people \u2014 including nine Chinese nationals, two personnel of the Frontier Constabulary and two locals \u2014 were killed and 28 others sustained injuries when a coach carrying them to an under-construction tunnel site of the 4,300-megawatt Dasu hydropower project fell into a ravine in the Upper Kohistan area after an explosion last year.
\nThe Chinese and Pakistani nationals worked on the Dasu hydropower project in the Upper Kohistan district.
\nAlthough the Foreign Office had initially termed the incident an accident, the government later said traces of explosives had been found and that \u201cterrorism could not be ruled out.\u201d
\nChina had later announced that it was sending a team to Pakistan to deal with the aftermath of the incident.
\nAfter more than a year, on November 11, ATC Hazara judge Sajjad Ahmad Jan announced judgement in the case in the Haripur prison in the presence of the accused.
\nAfter the completion of interrogation by police, the ATC had ordered the shifting of the accused to the Haripur Central Jail where they\u2019re tried by the judge via a video link.
\nThe prosecution\u2019s records showed that a car carrying 100-120kg explosives hit the bus, while the bomber\u2019s body parts suggested that he was not a Pakistani national.
\nThe then foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, had said that the bombing was carried out by Pakistani Taliban militants backed by the Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies and that Afghan soil was used for its planning and execution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Foreign Office (FO) on Monday said that the verdict in the 2021 Dasu bus attack case had demonstrated Pakistan\u2019s \u201cabiding commitment to counter terrorism\u201d….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2794,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}