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PESHAWAR, Pakistan : Suspected Islamic militants on Sunday shot dead three Chinese men in northwest Pakistan which security sources said could be a revenge attack over the siege of a radical mosque in Islamabad.
A fourth Chinese man was critically wounded in the assault at their home on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.
Witnesses said a number of bearded men came to the house in three jeeps and barged into the place where the Chinese also had set up a small factory to manufacture three-wheel auto-rickshaws.
"All the attackers were bearded and they fled without looting anything," Peshawar police chief Abdul Majeed Marwat said. He did not say what could be the motive for the attack on the Chinese, who had lived in the area for three years.
The wounded Chinese man said in hospital unknown men entered the house and sprayed bullets at them.
"My son and two nephews were killed, everything is finished," he said.
"We do not what was their motive."
A senior security official in Islamabad said the attack appeared to in revenge for the ongoing efforts by security forces to drive out Islamic militants holed up in the Red Mosque in the capital.
"It appears to be an act of terrorism committed by those unhappy about the government action against the Red Mosque following the abduction of Chinese women last month," the official said.
Students from the radical mosque raided an acupuncture clinic on June 23 and took hostage six Chinese women and a Chinese man whom they accused of running a brothel. They released them hours later, wearing burqas.
China, one of Pakistan's closest allies, demanded the arrest and prosecution of those involved in the incident.
Pakistani forces besieged the mosque last Tuesday after clashes between hardline students and paramilitary forces being deployed by the government to prevent them carrying out Taliban-style anti-vice raids.
China on Thursday voiced support for the Pakistani government's crackdown on the mosque, but also urged Islamabad to do a better job of protecting Chinese nationals.
Islamic militants and tribal insurgents have carried out a series of attacks on Chinese workers and interests in Pakistan in the past few years in an attempt to derail Beijing's investment in the country.
In February last year, three Chinese engineers were gunned down in the southwestern province of Baluchistan where they were working for a cement plant. - AFP/de
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