Pakistani Senator Syed Ali Zafar calls Indus treaty suspension as 'water bomb'

That India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) after the Pahalgam terror attack has rattled Pakistani leaders was evident as Pakistani Senator Syed Ali Zafar referred to it as a "water bomb". The lawmaker from former PM Imran Khan's party claimed that India's IWT move would hit one in 10 Pakistanis.

During a Senate session on Friday, Zafar, a senior leader from the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), cautioned that it could lead to widespread hunger and result in mass fatalities if the crisis remained unaddressed.

"We would die of hunger if we don't resolve the water crisis now. The Indus Basin is our lifeline as three-fourths of our water comes from outside the



country, nine out of 10 people depend on the Indus water basin for their living, as much as 90 per cent of our crops rely on this water and all our power projects and dams are built on it," Zafar said.

"This is like a water bomb hanging over us, and we must defuse it," he said.

Nearly 93% of the water from the Indus River System is used for irrigation and power generation by Pakistan. Nearly 80% of its irrigated land depends on its waters. Its economy is largely agrarian.

The suspension of the IWT was among the diplomatic measures taken by India after the terror attack in Pahalgam on April 22 in which Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists killed 26 people.