he federal interior minister, Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, during his visit to Beijing, got an earful from the Chinese minister of public security, Zhou Yongkang Zhou, who asked Pakistan for the umpteenth time to protect Chinese nationals working in Pakistan. The reference was to the assault and kidnapping of Chinese citizens in Islamabad by the Lal Masjid vigilantes. The Chinese minister called the Lal Masjid mob “terrorists” who targeted the Chinese, and asked Pakistan to punish the “criminals”. Mr Sherpao, who must have regretted being in Beijing, lamely rejoined that “Pakistan would take more rigorous action to safeguard the security of Chinese people and organisations in Pakistan”.
Of course, our interior minister knew that he would not be able to do much in this regard. The government has not been able to punish the Waziristan warlord Abdullah Mehsud for abducting the Chinese engineers in FATA. In fact given today’s political environment, Abdullah Mehsud may be more popular in certain areas of Pakistan than President Musharraf. The Chinese engineers killed in Balochistan too were taken by the Pakistanis — who normally boast about China as an all-weather friend — as forgivable collateral damage in Pakistan’s ideological excesses. While President Musharraf has confessed that Pakistan’s FATA seminaries have been sheltering Uighur terrorists from China’s Western province, Sinkiang, opposition politicians in Pakistan heatedly deny that there are any foreigners in the tribal areas.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...9-6-2007_pg3_1
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