HYDERABAD: Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro has said that any attempt by India to divert western rivers’ water in violation of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT) will be considered declaration of war against Pakistan.
The lower riparian would not take things lying down, but respond accordingly, he said while addressing a news conference at the local press club on Saturday.
He discussed how India was now trying to usurp western rivers’ water, exclusively used by Pakistan to irrigate 45 million acres of the command area.
He said India must desist from any such misadventure or be ready to face the consequences, which would be disastrous.
Says any attempt to divert western rivers’ flows will be taken as act of war
Mr Shoro said that 250m Pakistanis would not be waiting for someone else’s help in responding to any such attempt.
He noted that India had already suspended the IWT unilaterally to endanger regional peace. India had been showing this tendency since 1947, he said, and recalled that immediately after the Partition, it had started “weaponising water”.
The minister said it was a manifestation of India’s ill intentions. He said the1960 treaty was agreed upon as a bitter pill which was brokered by World Bank and it stood guarantor of it.
Under the IWT, he said, eastern rivers, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas were given under India’s control and the western rivers under Pakistan’s administration.
He said eastern rivers had a cumulative flow of 32 MAF (million acre feet). “Pakistan surrendered this huge quantum of 32MAF only for the sake of regional peace and India used this quantum even to irrigate her desert through the Indira Gandhi Canal. But western rivers’ flows were insufficient for the lower riparian [Pakistan]. We undermined our delta only for desire of peace. Today, our lands are being stomached by intruding sea,” he pointed out.
Mr Shoro said that nowhere in the world irrigation water is used for irrigating a desert, but India did it. He said that after the climate change phenomenon flows into the Indus river had already been affected and Pakistan remained worst-affected by global warming-driven weather patterns.
After climate change, flows drastically declined from 140MAF to 120MAF and even less than 120MAF. With these insufficient flows Pakistan tried to irrigate the command of Ravi and Sutlej as best as possible.
“Now, India is casting an evil eye on the existing flows or western rivers,” he said, and warned that the IWT was not just a treaty, and that’s why PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had discussed the issue threadbare. He quoted Bilawal as cautioning India at an international seminar that “we will not beg for our water if India tries to weaponise water; and any such act will be taken as a declaration of war by India against us”.
Jam Khan said that India would be sadly mistaken if it believed that Pakistan would remain silent. “The day you begin diversion or construction, you will see our response because we will find ourselves in a state of war,” he said, adding that India’s intelligentsia would be responsible for such belligerence of their country because otherwise they keep parroting about their desire for peace.
He said Pakistan had already paid a cost for the IWT and Sindh was the worst-affected province. Pakistan’s 25pc GDP comes from agriculture.
He noted that India used to share data regarding river flows but now this exercise has been discontinued, adding that this data guided Pakistan to anticipate flows in Chenab and Jhelum rivers. He came hard on some Indian ministers’ threatening statements as one of them had said that “India will not let a single drop of water flow into Pakistan”.
Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2026