'It's water warfare': Pakistan feels the heat as India suspends Indus treaty after Pahalgam terror attack

As Pakistan faces pressure over India’s suspension of the Indus Water Treaty following the killing of innocent civilians in Pahalgam by Pakistani terrorists, a minister from Islamabad has termed the move an act of “water warfare.”

The reaction comes amid worsening relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

“India’s reckless suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty is an act of water warfare; a cowardly, illegal move,” Pakistan’s Power Minister Awais Lekhari said in a post on X.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press briefing after the Cabinet Committee on Security meeting on Wednesday that a top security panel had been briefed about cross-border links to the attack. He added that India would suspend the decades-old river-sharing treaty with Pakistan and shut down the only land crossing between the two countries.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri also said India will withdraw its defence attachés from Pakistan and reduce its staff at the Islamabad mission from 55 to 30.

According to news agency ANI, India has summoned Pakistan’s top diplomat in New Delhi to inform him that all defence advisers at the Pakistani mission have been declared persona non grata and must leave the country within a week.

At least five terrorists, including three from Pakistan, are believed to have opened fire on tourists in Pahalgam’s Baisaran Valley on Tuesday, according to sources reported by The Indian Express. Two of the local terrorists had been trained in Pakistan in 2018, returned to the valley in 2021, and carried out the attack.

Indian security forces have initiated a large-scale manhunt to apprehend the perpetrators.

The terrorists targeted the victims based on their religion and killed those who were unable to recite Islamic verses, marking one of the deadliest civilian attacks in the region in recent years.

The foreign ministry described it as a “decisive response to cross-border terrorism.”