Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar on Monday expressed disapproval for a petition filed by six Chinese nationals in the high court against police harassment and restrictions on their movement, saying that the move was “against protocol”.

Xu Hui, Deng Huan and four other Chinese nationals have petitioned the Sindh High Court through their counsel Peer Rehman Mehsud and submitted that they, along with thousands of other Chinese citizens, came to Pakistan after fulfilling all required legal formalities and invested a significant amount of money and resources in various business ventures and sectors in Pakistan.

The petitioners said that the Sindh police had engaged in “repeated acts of harassment” over the last six to seven months, including unjustifiably restricting movements of Chinese nationals in Karachi and Sindh, particularly while they had also been subjected to unjustified detainments within their residences on the pretext of “security issues” without any clear legal grounds or specific incidents that warranted such actions.

The high court’s constitutional bench issued notices to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other respondents on the matter last week while the Sindh government ordered an inquiry into the allegations on Saturday.

Talking to the media outside the Sindh Assembly today, Lanjar said: “Foreign nationals should follow the Foreigners Act. Chinese nationals should also have followed the procedure. The petition filed by the Chinese nationals is not legally valid.”

He said the Chinese nationals should have approached the matter through their consul general or foreign office, and added that the petitioners were in Pakistan in a private capacity and did not have any foreign investment in the country.

“We have respect and honour for Chinese citizens. We provide foolproof security to them. But when someone does not follow the SOPs (standard operating procedures), the situation worsens,” he said, reiterating that the matter should have been approached through the Chinese consulate.

“Police officials have met the Chinese consul general. I will also meet the Chinese consul general in this regard so that he can come up with a policy statement.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Special Protection Unit (SPU) Dr Muhammad Farooq Ahmed told Dawn.com that since the Karachi airport attack on Chinese citizens on October 6 last year, foreigners arriving at the airport were taken to their destinations, residences and projects as per the SOPs.

He said five flights tended to arrive at the airport in a week, carrying 20 or up to 60 Chinese citizens, adding that as per the SOPs, they were not taken to their destinations collectively.

DIG Ahmed said the Chinese personnel were transported after a gap of three to four hours in bullet-proof vehicles with police squad and jammers as well.

He said in contrast to Chinese personnel working on projects unrelated to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), those associated with CPEC projects were taken to their destinations by authorities after a gap of six-12 hours as per SOPs.

He said the security of non-CPEC Chinese investors was also the responsibility of local investors but some of them did not provide the mandatory bullet vehicles for travelling, thus police tended to arrange such vehicles for their security as the foreigners would not be allowed to go in private taxis.

Regarding any complaint about bribery, the SPU head said that if any such complaint was received, the concerned policemen were taken to task and suspended from service.

DIG Ahmed said the police had moved Chinese personnel from Thatta, Sukkur and Kotri to Karachi hospitals in cases of health emergencies.

He said there was one complaint against a policeman who had pelted stones at Chinese nationals when he tried to prevent them from free movement after two days of an attack on Chinese in Site area, adding that action was already taken against the individual.

The DIG further said said the policeman claimed that the foreigners had used “abusive language” against him.

DIG Ahmed said a few projects were sealed in Malir due to violation of security protocols, adding that he personally visited such projects in Malir and advised the foreigners to at least raise the boundary walls of the projects.

He added that Chinese citizens working on non-CPEC projects were advised to take security concerns seriously given threats by sub-nationalists and militant groups, however in one month alone, 41 SOP violations were committed by the personnel working on non-CPEC projects.