RAW-NDS nexus behind Dasu attack: FM Qureshi

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Thursday that Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies seem to be involved in the attack on a bus of Chinese engineers working for the Dasu Hydropower Project, ARY News reported.

Briefing media about the investigation so far carried out into the Dasu incident, FM Qureshi said that Afghanistan soil was used in Dasu terrorist activity.

“India’s intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, National Directorate of Security (NDS) nexus were behind Dasu terror attack as per the probe carried out into the incident,” said Qureshi.

At least 12 people, including nine Chinese nationals working on the Dasu Hydropower Project, were killed when a bus carrying them fell into a ravine following an explosion on July 14.

The bus was ferrying the Chinese and Pakistani workers to an under-construction tunnel site of the Dasu Hydropower Project in the remote Kohistan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

FM Qureshi said that the car used in the attack was smuggled into Pakistan and the original intended target of terrorists’ was the Diamer-Bhasha dam site.

Sharing the findings of the probe, the foreign minister further said: “The investigation also revealed that the terrorists’ primary target was the Diamer-Bhasha Dam, but when they failed there, they chose Dasu next”.

“It was a blind case but Pakistani institutions managed to trace it,” he said and added that the authorities examined footage of 36 CCTV cameras along the 1,400 kilometers area that the bus had gone through.

He went on to say that body parts including a thumb and finger were found from the blast site and investigators are confident that they must belong to the suicide bomber.

While lauding the Chinese leadership for showing patience, Qureshi said that the Chinese are satisfied with the investigation into the Dasu terror attack.

DIG CTD

Meanwhile, the Deputy Inspector General of Counter-Terrorism Department (DIG-CTD) Javed Iqbal said that more than 100 kilograms of explosive material had been used by terrorists in the Dasu bus explosion.

While addressing a media briefing about the investigation into the Dasu Dam incident, DIG KP Javed Iqbal said that the probe was conducted with the cooperation of the country’s intelligence agencies.

He detailed that they found parts of the vehicle used in the terror attack from the crime scene, as well as recovered a finger of the terror suspect. The investigators collected footage of all CCTV cameras installed on the route, whereas, the 500-GB video data was acquired for conducting the investigation.