The Punjab Home Department has ordered Chinese nationals residing in the province or working for private businesses to use private security firms of A category for their security in response to an uptick in terrorist attacks throughout the nation.
To discuss the security of the Chinese nationals working on public and private projects in the province, the home department and police met on Thursday.
In order to ensure the safety of foreign workers on various projects of national significance, the Punjab government formed the Special Protection Unit (SPU) in 2014. The SPU hired 3,336 security officers, 187 drivers, 20 wireless operators, 244 former soldiers in the ranks of senior security officer to chief security officer, and seven former army officers in the ranks of additional director and deputy director.
Professional trainers provided the staff with six months of intense training at four police training institutions while keeping in mind the requirements of the work.
Currently, 7,567 Chinese workers at four CPEC and 27 non-CPEC projects in the province are being protected by 3,829 officers and employees of the SPU and 2,552 attached people from districts. Additionally, they are securing 24 camps and 70 dwellings where Chinese people reside in the province.
SPU DIG Agha Yousuf stated that the security of the Chinese officials working on government projects had been strengthened further owing to increased terrorist activities in the nation.
He said that the SPU was solely used to protect Chinese citizens working on CPEC and other government-related projects and that anybody entering the country alone or working on private enterprises was told to engage security firms.
He said that hundreds of Chinese nationals worked for private businesses and that security measures were being implemented to protect them.
The Chinese nationals have been instructed to engage A-category security organisations for their security, he added. “The government has also created the standard operating procedures (SOPs),” he said.