KARACHI: With its 31 branches in all district headquarters, the Sindh government has established a foreign security cell here at the Central Police Office (CPO) to register data of foreigners, particularly the Chinese, and provide them security.

This emerged on Friday at a meeting presided over by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah here at the CM House.

The CM said incidents like the Karachi University suicide attack in which Chinese teachers were targeted, would not be allowed to happen again.

“We have to strengthen the security of all foreign nationals, particularly the Chinese working on CPEC and non-CPEC projects in the province,” he said, adding that he had given guidelines to police and other law enforcement agencies to chalk out a foolproof security plan.

2,300 Chinese working on 214 non-CPEC projects in province

Mr Shah said the security of Chinese nationals working on CPEC and non-CPEC projects was a joint responsibility of all the stakeholders.

“Any incident threatening the security of Chinese nationals employed on various projects will have an impact on the national level,” he said.

Eight CPEC projects in six districts

He was told that at present, eight CPEC projects were running in six districts of the province where around 4,000 Chinese were working.

In 2016, the police had created a special protection unit (SPU) to provide security cover to those projects based in Sindh.

The home secretary said personnel of Sindh police, Pak Army, Rangers, FC and private security firms were providing security cover to the CPEC projects under the umbrella of special security division (SSD) in the light of safety guidelines issued by the National Counterterrorism Authority (Nacta).

The meeting was informed that there were 214 projects, including 21 non-CPEC but government sponsored, and 193 non-CPEC projects privately sponsored where 2,300 Chinese were working.

The provincial police chief informed the meeting that a foreign information desk had also been established by the Special Branch at Karachi airport to register the data of all foreign nationals, including Chinese.

He added that the FIA had been requested to provide 40 dashboard terminals for entry/exit data of foreign nationals, but it was yet to be done.

The CM directed the police chief to keep the Chinese consulate in the loop for the proposed security arrangements and compiling of the data.

He was told that a well-coordinated security mechanism for Chinese security was being prepared.

Earlier, a national action plan for the security of Chinese nationals was formulated and a task force constituted under the ministry of interior.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2022