Our Bureau
New Delhi
India’s decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) has caused serious problems in Pakistan. This has brought the Pakistan government in a frenzy as reports suggest that they have sent four letters to the Indian government requesting them to reconsider their decision of suspending the treaty. It is believed by many that Pakistan is desperate as they are on the doorsteps of a water crisis.
The sources suggest that Pakistan’s Ministry of Water Resources Secretary Syed Ali Murtaza has written these letters to the Jal Shakti Ministry, after which it forwarded them to the External Affairs Ministry (MEA). The letters have requested India to rethink about the suspension of IWT. Pakistan even sent a letter after India took out terrorist base camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) through Operation Sindoor.
Pakistan’s senator Syed Ali Zafar recently spoke about the water crisis and the impact it might have on the people of Pakistan. He said, “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,”
India has made its stance clear that terrorism and trade cannot go together. They have cleared out that the treaty will stay in abeyance until Pakistan decides to “credibly and irrevocably” end its support for cross-border terrorism. Although the treaty was signed in good faith but Pakistan is still breeding terrorism on its soil and India won’t be able to support the treaty.
The whole conflict on the water’s treaty started after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir in which 26 innocent lives were lost, most of whom were tourists. India, enraged by the attack, took several steps against Pakistan, one of which was the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty.
