Finally, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has bowed to Chinese pressure and is ready to pay more than $30 million to 36 Chinese victims of the Dasu Hydropower Project terror attack which took place July last year.
According to the proposal sent to the Chinese government, $20.3 million will be paid to the kin of 10 dead Chinese workers who were killed and $4.6 million to the 26 injured in the attack.
“Pakistan has decided to make the payment despite there being no legal or contractual obligation on the government because the Dasu Hydropower Project is funded by the World Bank and does not fall in the scope of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC),” one Pakistani official told the Pakistani daily Express Tribune.
Pakistan to pay Dasu attack Chinese victims
According to the Pakistani media, though it is a World Bank funded project, the project is being constructed by China and all the contracts are given to Chinese contractors working on various CPEC projects. The Chinese contractor had stopped all the work on the Dasu projects and had demanded a compensation of $38 million.
Also Read : China wants Pakistan to pay $38 million as blood money for its engineers killed at hydel project site
The compensation that the contractor had claimed was 500% more than what Chinese workers get in their own country. It was a sort of blackmailing,” said the official.
The terror attack on the Dasu Hydropower Project had become a major friction point between the two “Iron Brothers”. The Pakistani government tried to downplay the terrorist attack as an accident caused by gas leakage, China immediately retaliated and cancelled a scheduled meeting of the Joint Cooperation Committee of the CPEC.
According to Pakistani media, over the past few years, Chinese apprehensions about lack of progress in CPEC projects have been increasingly visible. With many projects getting into controversies and facing delays, China had to slow down on funding. China forced the Pakistani government to remove the controversial and “corrupt” chairman of CPEC, Lt Gen Asim Bajwa, a close confidant of the Pakistani Army chief, replacing own favorite last year in August but situations did not change.
Also Read : China furious with Imran Khan government over delay in CPEC projects
