Pakistan's Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik and Information Minister Ataullah Tarar said Tuesday that any attempt to seize water shares would be met with retaliation.
The dispute centers on the Indus Water Treaty, a critical diplomatic agreement that governs the distribution of river waters between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Tensions have escalated as Pakistan alleges that India is diverting water in breach of the legally binding contract.
During a press conference in Islamabad, Malik issued a warning regarding the security of the water supply. He said that if any water belonging to Pakistan under the treaty is taken, Islamabad will "cut off those hands."
The ministers said that the treaty signed in 1960 [1] remains the governing framework for water sharing. They urged India to honor the agreement to avoid further instability in the region.
Tarar addressed the legal standing of the agreement during the briefing. He said the 1960 [1] Indus Water Treaty is legally binding and cannot be suspended, canceled, or modified by any country unilaterally.
Pakistan maintains that the current diversion of water by India constitutes a violation of the treaty's terms. The government in Islamabad has called for a return to the established rules to ensure the agricultural and economic stability of the region, a necessity for a country heavily dependent on the Indus river system for irrigation.
India has not issued a formal response to these specific statements from the Tuesday press conference. The treaty has historically survived several wars and diplomatic crises, though both nations have recently expressed varying levels of dissatisfaction with the mechanism's implementation.
“Islamabad will 'cut off those hands' if water shares are seized.”
The escalating rhetoric over the Indus Water Treaty signals a deepening of the water-security crisis between India and Pakistan. Because the treaty is one of the few remaining functional diplomatic links between the two nations, any unilateral attempt to modify or ignore its terms could trigger a broader geopolitical conflict and threaten the food security of millions who rely on the river basin.
