Pakistan raising special force to protect Chinese experts

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Saturday said that a high-profile security force is being prepared to provide security to the Chinese experts working in Pakistan.
Talking to the ‘The News’, the minister said he would neither disclose how many personnel were being trained by Pakistan Army nor talk about when they would complete their training because it was a secret affair and would remain secret as part of the bigger security plan.
To a question, he said if the Chinese government was concerned about security of its experts in Pakistan, then it is quite a normal practice because every country in the world never compromises on security of its citizens.
To another question, he said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif gave the approval to prepare a special security force and funds for training of its personnel are being provided by the federal government.
Earlier, the sources said that the government is secretly raising a high-profile force comprising some 1,000 personnel with the help of Pakistan Army to provide fool-proof security cover to the Chinese experts that would work under the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor project.
“The Pakistani officials informed Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his recent visit to Islamabad that the security force would complete its training session till August after which it would put its foot on the ground to provide protection to the Chinese technical experts in Pakistan,” the sources said.
They said no official advertisement was given for recruitment in this special security force as personnel were either inducted through police department or selected from the serving police force.
The sources said the Chinese government has been highly concerned about Pakistan-China Economic Corridor programme and security threats to its experts that was why the government decided to raise a special security force to remove any doubts in this respect.
“Some 5,000 Chinese experts are likely to work in different areas of Pakistan including Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan and the Pakistani government wants to remove every kind of doubts about their security to ensure Pakistan-China Economic Corridor programme gets along well in the coming years,” the sources said.
The sources said it was the security concerns that forced both Pakistan and China to first start construction on Eastern route of Pakistan-China Economic Corridor that would run from Khunjarab via Mansehra, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan, Sukkur, Turbat to Gwadar.