Pahalgam attack: India suspends Indus Waters Treaty, downgrades diplomatic ties with Pakistan
Pahalgam terror attack: The CCS decisions make it clear that the government has concluded there was Pak involvement in the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir
NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday suspended the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 and further downgraded diplomatic ties with Pakistan, including expelling three military attaches and cutting the strength of the Pakistani mission to 30, because of “cross-border linkages” to the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam that killed 26 people.
New Delhi’s retaliatory measures were decided at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day after the brazen attack, during which terrorists fired at tourists at a meadow near Pahalgam town in Jammu and Kashmir.
Foreign secretary Vikram Misri announced the retaliatory measures, which included the shutting down of the integrated check post at Attari on the border with Pakistan, at a late night briefing. He said the CCS had directed all forces to maintain “high vigil” and resolved that the perpetrators of the attack in Pahalgam will be “brought to justice and their sponsors held to account”.
Misri delivered prepared remarks at the briefing that lasted about five minutes and didn’t take any questions. However, his comments made it clear that the government had concluded there was Pakistani involvement in the worst terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir since the Pulwama suicide bombing of 2019 that killed 40 troops.
The CCS, Misri said, was briefed in detail on the attack, in which 25 Indians and a Nepali citizen were killed. The CCS condemned the attack in the strongest terms and expressed its condolences to the families of the victims.
“In the briefing to the CCS, the cross-border linkages of the terrorist attack were brought out,” said Misri, who had participated in the CCS meeting along with external affairs minister S Jaishankar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.
Misri announced five retaliatory measures decided on by the CCS in view of the seriousness of the terror attack, with the Indus Waters Treaty being “held in abeyance with immediate effect, until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism”.
The army attache and the navy and air force advisors in the Pakistan high commission in New Delhi were declared “persona non grata”, diplomatic parlance for expulsion, and given a week to leave India. Five support staff of the attaches will be withdrawn from the Indian and Pakistani high commissions, he said.
Simultaneously, India will withdraw its army, navy and air force advisors from the mission in Islamabad. These posts in the respective high commissions were “deemed annulled”.
Misri said India’s integrated check post at Attari will be “closed with immediate effect”. He added: “Those who have crossed over with valid endorsements may return through that route before May 1, 2025.”
The overall strength of the high commissions in each other’s capitals will be brought down to 30 from the current figure of 55 by May 1, Misri said.
Pakistani nationals won’t be permitted to travel to India using visas under the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES). “Any SVES visas issued in the past to Pakistani nationals are deemed cancelled. Any Pakistani national currently in India under SVES visa has 48 hours to leave India,” Misri said.
These retaliatory measures will have a chilling effect on the few remaining strands in India-Pakistan relations, which have been at their lowest point since New Delhi scrapped Jammu and Kashmir’s special status in August 2019. At that time, Pakistan decided to downgrade diplomatic ties by not posting an envoy in New Delhi. The two sides also snapped the few remaining trade ties at the time.
The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, brokered by the World Bank to share the waters of cross-border rivers, had been the most durable pact between the two sides. However, India had sought a review of the treaty in view of what it said was Pakistan’s intransigence in handling disputes over dams on some rivers.
At one time, India and Pakistan had the largest missions in each other’s capitals, but their strength has been whittled down over the past two decades and the current figure of 30 will be one of the lowest ever.
The Attari-Wagah crossing is the only land border route between India and Pakistan that is currently operational, following the earlier suspension of cross-border bus and train services. It is mainly used by citizens of both countries who have relatives on the other side or are making pilgrimages to holy sites in India or Pakistan.
There have been calls for several years to scrap the SAARC visa scheme for Pakistanis, who already face enhanced scrutiny during regular visa applications.
Misri said the CCS had noted that the terror attack in Pahalgam “came in the wake of the successful holding of elections in the Union Territory and its steady progress towards economic growth and development”.
India, he said, has received strong expressions of support and solidarity from many governments around the world, which unequivocally condemned the attack. “The CCS recorded its appreciation for such sentiments, which reflect zero tolerance for terrorism,” he said.
Misri pointed to the recent extradition from the US of Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin and one of the conspirators in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, and said that India “will be unrelenting in the pursuit of those who have committed acts of terror, or conspired to make them possible”.
Rana, a former Pakistan Army officer, had used him US-based immigration business to provide cover to David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators in the Mumbai attacks, to travel to India to survey targets that were later struck by a 10-member team of terrorists from Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). India-Pakistan ties never recovered from the blow dealt by the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people and resulted in New Delhi shutting down the comprehensive dialogue with Pakistan to address issues such as counter-terrorism and Kashmir.
