File Photo. Rizwan Tabassum
A Chinese-Pakistani dual national was killed, and two others injured, after an armed assailant opened fire on a dentist’s clinic in Karachi on Wednesday.
According to police, the unidentified attacker posed as a patient at Dr. Richard Hu’s clinic and opened fire when it was his turn for examination. Senior Superintendent of Police Syed Asad Raza said the slain individual, Ronald Raymond Chou, was one of Dr. Hu’s employees. Dr. Hu and his wife, Margaret, were injured in the attack, he added.
The police official said the two injured individuals, who are also dual nationals, were out of danger.
Police have collected CCTV footage of the clinic and its nearby shops in an attempt to identify the assailant, who remains at-large. They said he had fled the crime scene with the help of an accomplice, who had been parked near the clinic on a motorcycle. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.
Condemning the attack, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said such incidents were intolerable. “The security of Chinese residents should be ensured in every way,” he said in a posting on Twitter.
Similarly, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari called for the culprits to be brought to justice. In a statement, he urged authorities to expedite their investigation so all those responsible were punished. “Such cowardly and intolerable attacks cannot create cracks in Pakistan-China friendship, which is higher than the Himalayas and deeper than the seas,” he added.
This is not the first time Chinese nationals have been attacked in Karachi. Earlier this year, Baloch separatists claimed a suicide bombing targeting Chinese teachers at the University of Karachi, warning that more people would be targeted if Beijing did not end its commercial activities in Balochistan.