With Pakistan including Chinese officials in a joint investigation into the Dasu bus blast that killed 15 people, including nine workers from China, Beijing has expressed satisfaction over the ongoing probe, according to a senior Pakistani minister.

Pakistan Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid wrote on Twitter that Chinese Ambassador Nong Rong called on him on the occasion of  Eid-ul-Azha and expressed satisfaction over the investigation.

During the brief meeting, Rong also hailed Pakistan's efforts to ward off conspiracies aimed at damaging the diplomatic relations between the two sides.

The minister reiterated that nothing can sabotage the time-tested friendship between Pakistan and China.

On July 14, a bus carrying workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Upper Kohistan plunged into a ravine following a blast that resulted in the death of 15 people, including nine Chinese workers.

Soon after the incident, a Chinese investigation team visited the site of the terror attack.

“Today China will send a cross-departmental joint working group to Pakistan to help with relevant work,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian had said at a media briefing in Beijing.

Initially, the Pakistan Foreign Office termed the incident as an accident due to gas leakage, but later it confirmed that traces of explosives were found at the incident spot.

In a decision that showed the extent of Chinese influence over Islamabad, Pakistan included 15 Chinese officials in the probe.

Rashid said that the Chinese government had also been taken on board and was being informed about updates as they were received.

"We completely reassure the Chinese government that these culprits, hidden hands and enemies of CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) and China-Pakistan friendship will never be forgiven at any cost,” the minister had then said.

Two personnel of Pakistan’s Frontier Constabulary and two locals were among the casualties while 28 others sustained injuries when a coach carrying them to an under-construction tunnel site of the 4,300-megawatt Dasu hydropower project fell into a ravine in the Upper Kohistan area after an explosion.

Rashid earlier claimed that the Dasu incident was planned days before a meeting of the Joint Coordination Committee of CPEC originally scheduled for July 16. The meeting was subsequently postponed in the incident's aftermath.

(SAM)