Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif has issued a warning to India, saying that it can take military action if Islamabad’s water security comes under threat. His comments come as Pakistan grapples with a severe water crisis, more than a year after New Delhi suspended the long-standing Indus Water Treaty following the Pakistan-sponsored Pahalgam terror attack.Speaking in an interview with ARY News, Asif declared that “The moment we feel that our national security, and water is part of our national security, is being threatened, we will go to war against India. Definitely.”He said that if concrete evidence emerged that India was moving at “alarming speed” towards disrupting water supplies, war would be considered. His comments came after a clip of Jal Shakti Minister CR Patil claiming that the flow of Indus water into Pakistan could be completely stopped by June 2028.
Tension over Indus Water Treaty
Tension escalated between the two nuclear-armed neighbors after a deadly attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam left 26 people dead. In response, India suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, a decision that will remain in effect until Pakistan stops funding cross-border terrorism.Under the World Bank-brokered treaty, Pakistan has been allotted about 80 percent of the Indus water basin, which retains 80 percent of the country’s agricultural land.Asif accused India of weaponizing water, manipulating the flow of the Chenab river and hiding important hydrological data. He said Pakistan had historically monitored Indian projects under the treaty through physical inspections, claiming that Pakistani teams had conducted about 115 inspections. Yet he admitted that he did not have the latest information on last year’s developments.
Pakistan’s internal water crisis
The warning comes against the backdrop of severe water shortages affecting nearly one-third of Pakistan’s population, especially in Sindh and Balochistan. Sindh Irrigation Department data shows that the North West Canal is deficient by 64.1 per cent, while the Rice Canal and Dadu Canal are deficient by 38 per cent and 82 per cent respectively.Sindh officials accused upstream Punjab of illegally drawing 53,394 cusecs of water against the sanctioned allocation of 44,000 cusecs, which is more than 21 per cent.With downstream flows declining, local leaders have warned of impending “economic genocide” as disputes over provincial borders have escalated.