"Starvation Is Coming": Pakistan Senator Warns as India Suspends Lifeline Water Treaty
Islamabad(The Uttam Hindu): Maintaining that the nation is facing the barrel of a national water crisis, yet another Pakistani politician on Friday made an urgent appeal to the Shehbaz Sharif administration to "neutralize" the "water bomb" overhanging the nation after India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) following the monstrous April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 innocent civilians were killed.
"We would starve to death if we do not sort out the water crisis at this hour. The Indus Basin is our lifeline because three-fourths of our water is not from within the country, nine out of 10 individuals live off the Indus water basin, as much as 90 per cent of our agricultural produce depends on this water and all our power projects and dams are constructed on it. This is similar to a water bomb looming over us and we have to defuse it," Pakistan Senator Syed Ali Zafar stated in his address during a Senate Session on Friday.
The Indus Water Treaty of 1960 regulates the division of waters of six rivers — Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — between Pakistan and India. Restless Islamabad has been trying to get New Delhi to roll back its move of suspending IWT with the National Security Committee (NSC) of Pakistan and nation's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar issuing threatening and unsubstantiated remarks in recent weeks.
But exercising its national security right, India has indicated that the treaty shall be in suspension till Islamabad "credibly and irrevocably" abandons support to cross-border terrorism. The decision was sanctioned by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the highest level decision-making forum on strategic matters, soon after the Pahalgam terror attack, the first time New Delhi has put the World Bank-facilitated agreement on hold.
While India initiated Operation Sindoor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently emphasized the government's unyielding stand that "water and blood cannot flow together" and "terror and talks cannot be in tandem.". "I would also like to emphasize that any bilateral negotiation on Jammu and Kashmir shall only be on the vacation of illegally-occupied Indian territory by Pakistan. On the issue of the Indus Waters Treaty, I am once again repeating myself, it shall remain in abeyance till Pakistan credibly and irrevocably renounces support for cross-border terrorism. As our Prime Minister has spoken, water and blood cannot flow together, trade and terror also cannot go together," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a weekly media briefing in New Delhi on Thursday.
Prime Minister Modi on the same day reiterated India's strong opposition to terrorism, emphasizing that there will be no talk or trade with Islamabad unless it abandons its illegal occupation of Kashmir. "If there has to be any discussion, it will be on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). If Pakistan goes on exporting terrorists, it will be left pleading for every rupee. It won't receive a single drop of Indian water," he declared while speaking at a huge public rally in Rajasthan's Bikaner on Thursday. PM Modi also clarified that "playing with the blood of Indians will cost Pakistan dearly".