In yet another instance of Pakistan’s sabre-rattling over India’s suspension of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) following the Pahelgam terror attack, its Climate Change Minister, Musadik Malik, has threatened to “cut off those hands” that tried to control his country’s share of water under the treaty.
Speaking to reporters, Malik alleged that India was “controlling” Pakistan’s share of water, adding that Islamabad would not allow anyone to stake a claim to its share of water.
“There is a tap being controlled by the prime minister of a neighbouring country. He says he will not let even a drop of water flow into Pakistan,” said Malik as quoted by The Dawn.
Agriculture at stake
Elaborating further, the minister stated that 40-50 per cent of Pakistan’s population depended on agriculture for their livelihood.
“Someone else (is trying to) control the entirety of the country’s food security, 50 per cent of employment in the country and 25 per cent of the economy,” he added.
The Minister further stated that Pakistan had already made it clear that “anyone trying to deprive it of its water would face severe consequences” adding, “But there is also the question of justice. We will protect ourselves…Not that we’ve just announced it, but we’ve proved that if anyone lays a hand over our share of water, we’ll cut off that hand.”
Malik argued that in any other part of the world, the flow of river water remains unrestricted even without a treaty and is governed only by a convention.
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“Does every upper riparian now have the right to stop the flow of water to the lower riparian?… But we even have a treaty. How can the water be stopped here then?” he said.
‘IWT can’t be suspended’
During the same press conference, Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tararar argued that the IWT was legally binding and could not be suspended, revoked or amended unilaterally.
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“Legally, Pakistan’s stance has garnered support internationally, as the IWT cannot be unilaterally revoked, abolished or amended,” he said, adding Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir had already made it clear on multiple occasions that “water is our lifeline as well as our red line”.
India’s position
India had put the IWT in abeyance in the aftermath of the deadly terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam last year, in which 26 civilians lost their lives. New Delhi has since maintained that the decades-old water-sharing agreement will remain suspended until Pakistan takes credible and verifiable steps to dismantle the cross-border terror infrastructure operating from territory under its control.
Brokered by the World Bank and signed in 1960, the treaty has since regulated the sharing and utilisation of the waters of the Indus river system and its tributaries between India and Pakistan.
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