Pakistani court allows 5-day probe in Chinese mission attack

KARACHI, Pakistan – A Pakistani court has ruled that police may have five days to investigate the five suspects accused of helping a separatist group attack the Chinese Consulate in Karachi in November, killing two civilians and two policemen.

Officer Nusrat Shaikh said Saturday that anti-terrorism court judge Abdul Malik ordered that formal charges be levelled against the five after the investigation.

Senior officer Amir Sheikh said earlier the men confessed to facilitating three assailants who were killed during the Nov. 23 attack at the consulate.

Sheikh claimed the detainees were linked to the Baluch Liberation Army, a Baluchistan-based group which claimed responsibility for attacking the Chinese mission.

For over a decade, separatist groups in Baluchistan have been engaged in a low-level insurgency demanding greater share from province’s gas and mineral resources.