Pakistan had promised to eliminate Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) after the bloody attack on Indian Parliament seven years ago, but they haven't, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said.
"They promised. And they went about saying, see they are not there any more," Powell disclosed, saying that the group, suspected to have masterminded the Mumbai carnage, "changed names and changed form".
"Just the other day, Pakistan government arrested a number of people and said they have raided seven camps," Powell said. "And the question that immediately occurred to me was why are there seven camps?"
But now, Powell, who was the Chairman Chief of Staff of the US Forces, feels US can no longer "wink and nod" on the presence of terrorist groups in Pakistan and Washington has to make it clear to Islamabad that "they have to take them on".
"We can no longer wink and nod and pretend that it (presence of terrorists groups in Pakistan) isn't there when it is there, and they have to take them on. And if they don't, then you will have these incidents over time, and the situation will remain unstable," he said.
Pakistanis have to make a strategic choice, both a political choice, a military choice and a choice on the part of Inter-Services security apparatus that "we can longer pay the price of having this kind of terrorist organisation inside Pakistan", Powell said in an interview to CNN.
For the first time, Powell, who was the Secretary of State when the Indian Parliament was attacked, admitted that previous crackdowns on organisations like LeT, had got away with just "cosmetic" show.
"But I would say to my Pakistani friends, don't let it happen again," Powell said.
"Don't allow these kinds of organisations to exist, either in Pakistan-Controlled Kashmir or anywhere else. I think they really have to go after them," the Former Secretary of state said.
