Pakistani police register terrorism case against group over attack on Chinese national

Sep 30, 2022

Islamabad [Pakistan], September 30 : Pakistani police filed a case against the Sindhi rebel group, whom officials termed 'separatist' and called themselves as Sindhudesh People's Army (SPA) after it claimed responsibility for the attack on a couple of Chinese origin in Karachi.
The couple, Dr Richard Hu and Phen Teyin, were wounded and their cashier Ronald Raymond Chou was killed when an attacker, in the garb of a patient, opened fire on them, Dawn reported.
According to the official, the suspect clad in pants and a shirt and wearing a red cap entered the dental clinic, as a patient and after waiting for a few minutes, he opened fire on the couple and the cashier.
The latter died in the attack while the wounded couple was rushed to a hospital, as per reported by the officials.
'Chinese' doctor and wife are Pakistani nationals, and hold Canadian passports; police say their condition is out of danger.
Talking about the case, South-SSP Syed Asad Raza said that the case was registered at the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) on terrorism and murder charges on behalf of the state on a complaint lodged by a Preedy police officer, according to Dawn.
The police believed that the attack was aimed at undermining Pakistan-China relations and sabotaging their joint projects in the country.
According to the contents of FIR, Dr Richard Hu and his wife Phen Teyin along with their cashier Ronald Raymond Chou were busy in their routine work at the clinic when a customer entered the clinic and asked for scaling of his teeth. He seemed to be a Sindhi or Balochi speaker.
After five/six minutes, he stood up from his seat in the waiting lounge and proceeded to the doctors' cabin, where he took out a pistol and started firing, killing the cashier and wounding the couple. The suspect quickly walked out of the clinic to join his accomplice, waiting on a motorcycle parked outside. They then sped away.
The FIR said that through intelligence sources and social media, the police came to know that the responsibility for the attack was claimed by the SPA, a conglomerate of Sindhi and Baloch separatist outfits.
According to the FIR, unknown terrorists and their facilitators believed to be belonging to the SPA had attacked Pakistanis of Chinese origin with the purported aim of undermining Pakistan-China ties and sabotaging their joint development projects in the country, reported Dawn.
Besides, they wanted to spread terror in the country to achieve their numerous other objectives and gain media coverage for their organisation, it added.