China has asked Pakistan to further upgrade the security of Chinese personnel and projects under the bilateral economic corridor in the country, a media report said on Friday.

The Chinese demand came after the July 14 bus blast in Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in which 13 people, including nine Chinese personnel, were killed.

Pakistan’s planning and development minister Asad Umar, speaking to the press after co-chairing the Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), said both sides agreed to “arrest those guilty of heinous crime and get them sentenced by courts at the earliest”, the Dawn newspaper reported.

On July 14, a bus carrying Chinese engineers and construction workers exploded before falling into a deep ravine in Dasu area of Upper Kohistan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The Chinese nationals were engaged in building a dam.