KARACHI: Pakistani security officials examine a damaged vehicle in which a Chinese National was travelling, following a roadside bomb attack. — AFP

KARACHI: A Chinese worker and his driver were wounded in Pakistan yesterday in a bomb attack claimed by ethnic nationalists opposed to plans for extensive Chinese investment, police said. The attack is likely to raise concern about a planned China Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC), involving $46 billion in Chinese investment in roads, power plants, railway lines and a new port in Pakistan.

Pakistan, battling Islamist militants as well as separatist guerrillas in parts of the country, has promised to ensure security for the project. The Chinese man and his Pakistani driver were slightly wounded in the attack in the southern province of Sindh, provincial police chief Allah Dino Khawaja told Reuters. "Apparently, the attack was aimed at the Chinese national," Khawaja said, adding that the man was travelling with his driver and a security guard.

A low-intensity bomb went off by the road in a suburb of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, shattering the windows of the van the men were travelling in. Television footage showed construction helmets in a rear seat. A pamphlet signed by a group called the Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army, an ethnic Sindhi separatist group, was found at the site, police said.

"The world's most plunderous nation has set its eye on Sindh," the pamphlet said, according to a photograph of it seen by Reuters. "They want to attack Sindh and enslave its people." The group was apparently referring to the China-Pakistan corridor, which was announced last year, though it was unclear whether the unidentified Chinese national was working on a CPEC project. CPEC is part of China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative, aimed at easing the passage of Chinese exports to foreign markets by connecting southwestern China to the Arabian Sea, through Pakistan. - Reuters