Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on August 12, that a bus attack that killed nine Chinese workers, last month, was a suicide bombing carried out by Islamist militants backed by Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies.
On July 14, a bus carrying the Chinese workers on their way to a dam construction site in northern Pakistan, was hit by a blast in the district of Kohistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.
Pakistan originally blamed a mechanical failure for the blast but later said traces of explosives were detected and that it could not rule out an attack.
Mr. Qureshi, addressing a news conference in Islamabad, with a top investigator, said that Pakistan has data evidence to back the allegation that intelligence agencies of the two neighbouring countries were involved.
The minister said an investigation into the attack showed that there was a "nexus of Indian RAW and Afghan NDS" in the attack, referring to India's and Afghanistan's intelligence agencies.
Mr. Qureshi said that Pakistani Taliban militants - known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella movement of militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State - carried out the attack on July 14 with the backing of the two intelligence agencies.
"As per our investigation the Afghan soil was used for this incident... about its planning and its execution we're seeing a clear nexus between NDS and RAW," Mr. Qureshi said.
Officials from the Indian and Afghan foreign ministries could not immediately be reached for comment.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged his Pakistani counterpart last month to hold accountable the culprits in what he called a terrorist attack. Chinese investigators have been involved in the probe, Mr. Qureshi said.
