Islamabad: Pakistan has started to panic after the inflow of water from India in the River Chenab dropped to 7,200 cusecs on Saturday. India has held the 65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance since the Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir on April 22, in which 26 people – most of them tourists from across the country – were massacred.
Under the IWT, Pakistan is to receive water from the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus, while India has sole rights over the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej. By keeping the IWT in abeyance, India is no longer under obligation to release waters of the Chenab, Jhelum or Indus, for use by Pakistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said recently that Pakistan will not get water from rivers over which India has rights. In response, Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif threatened that his country wouldn’t let India “cross the red line” on the IWT.
Barely a day later, Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority said the inflow of water in the Chenab at Marala Headworks (situated near Sialkot) was 98,200 cusecs on Thursday. It dropped to 44,800 cusecs on Friday before plunging further to 7,200 cusecs on Saturday. The statement said “no water was being discharged.”
This is not the first time that the Chenab has ‘dried up’ after the Pahalgam terror strike. It happened once, soon after India announced its decision to suspend the IWT.
On May 5, Pakistan had claimed: “India restricted flows through Jammu’s Baglihar and Salal hydroelectric dams on the Chenab that runs onto Pakistan”. At that time, the Chenab’s flow had reduced from 35,600 to 3,177 cusecs.
“Pakistan will have to pay a heavy price for every terrorist attack … Pakistan’s Army will pay it. Pakistan’s economy will pay for it,” Modi had said in Rajasthan recently.
