It's water bomb, says Pakistan senator rattled by Indus treaty suspension

India Today

23-05-2025

That India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) after the Pahalgam terror attack has rattled Pakistani leaders was evident as Pakistani Senator Syed Ali Zafar referred to it as a "water bomb". The lawmaker from former PM Imran Khan's party claimed that India's IWT move would hit one in 10 Pakistanis.During a Senate session on Friday, Zafar, a senior leader from the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), cautioned that it could lead to widespread hunger and result in mass fatalities if the crisis remained unaddressed.advertisement"We would die of hunger if we don't resolve the water crisis now. The Indus Basin is our lifeline as three-fourths of our water comes from outside the country, nine out of 10 people depend on the Indus water basin for their living, as much as 90 per cent of our crops rely on this water and all our power projects and dams are built on it," Zafar said.
"This is like a water bomb hanging over us, and we must defuse it," he said.Nearly 93% of the water from the Indus River System is used for irrigation and power generation by Pakistan. Nearly 80% of its irrigated land depends on its waters. Its economy is largely agrarian.The suspension of the IWT was among the diplomatic measures taken by India after the terror attack in Pahalgam on April 22 in which Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists killed 26 people.advertisementKnowing that Pakistan would play the victim card, India is sending out seven teams to different corners of the world for post-Op Sindoor diplomacy and convey its stance on the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty.After the Pahalgam attacks, Misri said India could not adhere to the existing terms of the IWT, and that Pakistan had ignored repeated calls to renegotiate the terms of the treaty.The Indian teams will justify India's stance on the IWT without letting Pakistan play the victim card as a lower riparian state.Signed in 1960, the Indus Waters Treaty outlines how six rivers — Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — are divided and managed between India and Pakistan.Pakistan's government has been pressing India to reconsider its decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty, with high-ranking officials, including Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, making stern remarks.Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated his message delivered after the Pakistan-sponsored Uri attack in 2016, "blood and water can't flow together at the same time". India held the IWT in "abeyance" until Pakistan "abjured cross-border terrorism".Experts say, while India now has legal and diplomatic room to build storage and diversion infrastructure on the western rivers, its ability to significantly alter water flows to Pakistan in the short term remains limited due to existing infrastructural constraints and the time required to develop large-scale projects.advertisementThe suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, which Pakistan took for granted and exported terror to India, has rattled the country and its leadership. That is evident in Friday's "water bomb" statement by Senator Zafar.