‘India must share water or we will wage war and get it from all 6 rivers’: Bilawal

Former foreign minister and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said on Monday that India should abide by the Indus Waters Treaty and share water fairly, or else Pakistan will wage a war and ensure that our people get water from all six rivers”. Delhi unilaterally suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which governs the usage of the Indus river system, on April 23 after 26 innocent civilians were killed by Pakistan-based terrorists in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. After launching Operation Sindoor, India had agreed to a ceasefire when the Pakistani DGMO called and requested cessation of military action after Indian forces struck several air bases in Pakistan and rendered some of them useless.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO) on Saturday criticised Indian Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement that New Delhi would never restore the IWT with Pakistan.

Speaking in the National Assembly during a session on the federal budget, Bilawal said, “India has two options: share water fairly, or we will deliver water to us from all six rivers.”
“The attack on Sindhu [Indus River] and India’s claim that the IWT has ended and it’s in abeyance, firstly, this is illegal, as the IWT is not in abeyance, it is binding on Pakistan and India, but the threat itself of stopping water is illegal according to the UN charter,” Bilawal said.

He continued, “If India decides to follow through on the threat, we will have to wage war again.”

Bilawal Bhutto is severely mocked in India over his statements as well as his style.

He also said India was weaponising terrorism for political purposes. “India seeks to exploit terrorism as a political tool to harm Pakistan’s international standing,” he said, adding that during his diplomatic visits to the United Kingdom and European Union, it became evident that India had lobbied hard to reverse Pakistan’s progress on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) front.

“At a time when Pakistan had successfully moved from the FATF grey list to the white list, India made every effort to drag us back to the grey list using false narratives and diplomatic pressure,” he said.

Bilawal also urged renewed dialogue between Pakistan and India to curb regional instability.

Earlier, riled by the impending water crisis, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharifhad condemned India’s unilateral suspension of the IWT, describing it as a “blatant violation and act of water aggression”.