Pakistan was a sham democracy that had been caught red-handed proliferating nuclear weapons technology, exporting terrorism and trafficking drugs, Sinha said in an interview published in <I>The Independent</I> daily in London on Thursday.

"While Bush may have the idea that there are three members of the axis of evil [North Korea, Iran and Iraq], one may conclude that one has been left out: Pakistan," he said.

Sinha said Pakistan had exported "Taliban ideology" into Afghanistan and after the US-led war "most of the remaining Al Qaida had come back to hide in Pakistan".

Pakistan was also a conduit for heroin smuggled from its North West Frontier Province, he said.