We would die of hunger, must defuse water bomb hanging over us: Pak Senator

Islamabad: Asserting that the country is staring down the barrel of a major water crisis, yet another Pakistani politician on Friday made a desperate appeal to the Shehbaz Sharif government to “defuse” the “water bomb” that is hanging over the country after India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) following the heinous April 22 Pahalgam terror attack which resulted in the death of 26 innocent civilians.

“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. This is like a water bomb hanging over us and we must defuse it,” Pakistan Senator Syed Ali Zafar said in his speech during a Senate Session on Friday.

The Indus Water Treaty, which was signed in 1960, governs the sharing of the waters of six rivers — Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — between India and Pakistan.

A rattled Islamabad has been urging New Delhi to reconsider its decision of putting IWT into abeyance with the National Security Committee (NSC) of Pakistan and country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar making threatening and baseless statements over the past few weeks.

However, invoking its national security prerogative, India has made it clear that the treaty will remain in abeyance until Islamabad “credibly and irrevocably” ends its support for cross-border terrorism.

The move was endorsed by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the apex decision-making body on strategic affairs, immediately after the Pahalgam terror attack, marking the first time New Delhi has hit pause on the World Bank-brokered agreement.

As India launched Operation Sindoor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly underlined the government’s uncompromising position that “water and blood cannot flow together” and “terror and talks cannot happen at the same time”.

“I would also like to underline that any bilateral discussion on Jammu and Kashmir will only be on the vacation of illegally-occupied Indian territory by Pakistan. On the question of the Indus Waters Treaty, I am again repeating myself, it will remain in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism. As our Prime Minister has said, water and blood cannot flow together, trade and terror also cannot go together,” Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated during a weekly media briefing in New Delhi on Thursday.

On the same day, Prime Minister Modi reiterated India’s firm stance against terrorism, saying there would be no talks or trade with Islamabad unless it relinquishes its illegal occupation of Kashmir.

“If there is to be any talk, it will be on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). If Pakistan continues to export terrorists, it will be left begging for every penny. It will not get a single drop of Indian water,” he said while addressing a massive public rally in Rajasthan’s Bikaner on Thursday.

PM Modi also made it clear that “playing with the blood of Indians will cost Pakistan dearly”.

IANS