Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that Pakistan will not receive water from rivers over which India holds rights, following New Delhi’s suspension last month of a key river water-sharing treaty after a deadly attack in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
The suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), negotiated by the World Bank in 1960, was among a slew of measures announced by India against Pakistan last month after the April 22 attack that killed 26 men, mostly Hindu tourists.
New Delhi accused Pakistan of the attack without presenting evidence and launched missile strikes on Pakistani cities, triggering the worst military clashes in nearly 30 years before both sides agreed to a ceasefire on May 10.
“Pakistan will have to pay a heavy price for every terrorist attack … Pakistan’s army will pay it, Pakistan’s economy will pay it,” Modi said at a public event in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, which borders Pakistan.
The Indus treaty provides water for 80% of Pakistan’s farms from three rivers that flow from India, but Pakistan’s finance minister said this month that its suspension was not going to have “any immediate impact”.
The ceasefire between the countries has largely held, with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar saying that there is no exchange of fire currently and “there has been some repositioning of forces accordingly”.
“The (military) operation continues because there is a clear message…that if there are acts of the kind we saw on April 22, there will be a response, we will hit the terrorists,” Jaishankar told Dutch news outlet NOS.
“If the terrorists are in Pakistan, we will hit them where they are,” he added. There was no immediate response from Pakistan to comments by Modi and Jaishankar.
The arch rivals have taken several measures against each other since the April attack in IIOJK, including suspension of trade, closure of land borders, and suspension of most visas.
