VP Naidu slams Imran Khan for his remarks on presence of terrorists in Pakistan

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday took a veiled dig at Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan for his remarks that thousands of terrorists still exist on Pakistani soil.

"Encouraging terror has become state policy of some countries including our neighbour. Aiding, funding, abetting, training terrorist and causing havoc....I am happy our neighbour Prime Minister (Imran Khan) yesterday said that there are 30,000-40,000 terrorists but he gave wrong address saying that they are trained in Kashmir," Naidu said here.

"They are trained in your part of the country you should understand that and take steps because that will affect that country also," said the Vice-President.

His remarks came during his address at the launch of book on Artificial Intelligence written by Rajya Sabha MP Narendra Jadhav.

On Tuesday, Imran Khan during his visit to Washington said that his country still has 30,000-40,000 terrorists.

"There was a watershed in Pakistani politics. In 2014, the Pakistani Taliban slaughtered 150 schoolchildren at Army Public School. 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," Khan had said.

"Until we came into power, the governments did not have the political will, because when you talk about militant groups we still have about 30,000-40,000 armed people who have been trained and have fought in some part of Afghanistan or Kashmir," he revealed.