Indus Waters Treaty: Pakistan's Bid To Prove India As Water Aggressor Baseless, Say Intelligence Sources

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Last Updated:June 01, 2025, 15:54 IST

A top Pakistani military official's statement on the Indus Waters Treaty shows Pakistan is committed to responding with full force across the complete spectrum of national power

A statement on India’s abeyance of the Indus Waters Treaty being an “act of war" by a top Pakistani military official, is baseless and without understanding of the facts involved, top intelligence sources told CNN-News18.

Pakistan’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General Sahir Shamshad Mirza declared any suspension or abeyance of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) as “acts of war" at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

According to top intelligence sources, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza’s statement shows that Pakistan is committed to responding with full force across the complete spectrum of national power. The neighbouring country’s aggressive rhetoric, framing India’s measures related to the IWT as an “act of war", reflects a pattern of coercive diplomacy, the sources said.

This has been reinforced by Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC), which warned that disrupting water flow will be treated as aggression. The senate standing committee on water resources condemned India’s abeyance as illegal and provocative, threatening international legal action while ignoring the absence of provisions on the treaty’s suspension.

The sources said such narratives portray India as a water aggressor to fuel domestic nationalism. There is no actual suspension, but India declared the IWT in abeyance following the Pahalgam terror attack that it alleged has cross-border terror links, they said.

They said this shows that this is a reversible diplomatic measure, and not a termination based on future negotiations on terrorism. The IWT does not have a clause for unilateral suspension, which makes India’s move to be against terrorism rather than legal withdrawal, they added.

The sources further said Pakistan has labelled treaty adjustments as “acts of war" while itself violating the IWT provisions. Pakistan is using the groundwater of the eastern rivers – allocated to India – before they cross into Pakistan, they said. The country is also constructing river training works, which is contributing to the flooding of the Rann of Kutch in India, they added.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied links to cross-border terrorism despite attacks like Pahalgam in April this year and Uri in 2016. India has cited these deadly terror strikes to justify the raft of diplomatic countermeasures it took following the Pahalgam attack that claimed 26 lives.

Framing water issues as an existential threat lowers the threshold for military retaliation and Pakistani generals only want it to remain in the business of war, the sources said. Pakistan’s threats risk closing doors to all functional diplomatic channels, they said.

India’s “abeyance" is a measured response to terrorism and not water warfare as suggested by Pakistani military officials, they said. Islamabad’s escalation rhetoric ignores both technical realities and its own treaty violations, while prioritising confrontation over cooperative water governance needed for climate-vulnerable regions, they said.