New Delhi, June 21: Displaying a strict stance against the neighbouring country following the Pahalgam terror attack, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah said in an interview with The Times of India that India will never restore the Indus Waters Treaty with Islamabad, and that the water flowing to Pakistan will be diverted for internal use.
“No, it will never be restored,” Shah told the daily.
“We will take water that was flowing to Pakistan to Rajasthan by constructing a canal. Pakistan will be starved of water that it has been getting unjustifiably,” Shah said
Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to for comments, Reuters reported.
But it has said in the past that the treaty has no provision for one side to unilaterally pull back and that any blocking of river water flowing to Pakistan will be considered “an act of war”.
Islamabad is also exploring a legal challenge to India’s decision to hold the treaty in abeyance under international law.
The latest comments from Shah, the most powerful cabinet minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, have dimmed Islamabad’s hopes for negotiations on the treaty in the near term.
Reuters reported last month that India plans to dramatically increase the water it draws from a major river that feeds Pakistani farms downstream, as part of retaliatory action.
The relation between the two neibhouring countries touched the abyss in the aftermath of Pahalgam attack that killed 26 and left many injured.
As an immediate response to the terror attack, India put into “abeyance” its participation in the 1960 treaty- Indus Water Treaty- which governs the usage of the Indus river system. The treaty had guaranteed water access for 80% of Pakistan’s farms through three rivers originating in India
Pakistan has denied involvement in the incident, but the accord remains dormant despite a ceasefire agreed upon by the two nuclear-armed neighbours last month following their worst fighting in decades.
