Washington: Prime Minister Imran Khan has admitted that about 30,000-40,000 "armed people", who have been trained and have fought in some part of Afghanistan or Kashmir, were in Pakistan and accused the previous governments of not telling the truth to the US about the militant groups operating in the country.
India and Afghanistan accuse Pakistan of providing safe haven to the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other militant groups, which carry out attacks in the two countries.
Khan, who is on a three-day official visit to the US, also admitted to American lawmakers that successive governments in Pakistan did not tell the truth to the United States, in particular in the last 15 years, that there were 40 different militant groups operating in his country.
Khan was talking at the US Institute of Peace, a US-Congress funded think-tank.
"There was a watershed in Pakistani politics. In 2014, the Pakistani Taliban slaughtered 150 school children at Army Public School (in Peshawar). All the political parties signed the National Action Plan and we all decided after that, that we will not allow any militant groups to operate inside Pakistan," he said.
Khan said it is in the interest of Pakistan that "we do not allow any armed militant groups to operate" in our country.
"We are the first government that has started disarming militant groups. This is the first time it's happening. We've taken over their institutes, their seminaries. We have administrators there," said Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party formed its first federal government in August last year.
"So it is for the first time in Pakistan that we have decided that there will be no armed militias in our country," he added.
By Lalit K Jha
