Union Home Minister Amit Shah has made it clear that the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan will never be reinstated. In a strong statement during an interview with The Times of India, he said Pakistan had violated the spirit of the agreement, and India had every right to put the treaty in abeyance. Amit Shah also accused Pakistan of attempting to derail peace in Kashmir and reiterated that the country would face the consequences of its support for terrorism, both diplomatically and militarily.
Indus treaty suspension and India’s water policy shift
Amit Shah firmly stated that the treaty, originally signed in 1960 under World Bank mediation, has no future after the recent developments in India-Pakistan relations. Referring to the deadly Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 — which killed 26 people — as a turning point, Amit Shah said India had suspended the agreement immediately and would now use water resources to benefit its own regions.
“The Indus Waters Treaty was based on the goal of peace and progress. But once that foundation was violated, there was nothing left to preserve,” Amit Shah said. He added that while international treaties cannot be annulled unilaterally, India’s decision to put the pact in abeyance was legally and morally justified.
Amit Shah revealed that the government is now working on diverting water meant for Pakistan to Rajasthan by constructing a canal. “We will use every drop of water that belongs to India. Pakistan will be starved of the water it was unjustifiably receiving,” he declared, indicating a major shift in India’s water management policy aimed at curbing Pakistan’s long-standing dependency on shared rivers.
Pahalgam attack and India’s retaliation
Condemning the April 22 attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam as a calculated move to disrupt the region’s growing stability and tourism, Amit Shah described it as a “deliberate attempt to sabotage peace.” He highlighted that the Kashmiri people had never before displayed such unity with the rest of India and suggested that Pakistan was trying to undermine this progress.
“In response to the terror attack, we launched precise, limited strikes on terror launchpads,” Amit Shah said. He emphasized that while India’s strikes were aimed only at terrorist targets, Pakistan interpreted them as an attack on its territory, effectively blurring the line between terror and state actions.
Amit Shah further added that in past instances, when Pakistan shelled civilian locations inside India, the Indian Air Force retaliated by damaging Pakistani airbases. This, according to him, led to Pakistan seeking a de-escalation, showing that India’s responses were effective.
Targeting Congress over criticism of Operation Sindoor
The Union Home Minister also hit out at the Congress party for criticizing the government’s ongoing anti-terror campaign, Operation Sindoor. He challenged the opposition’s moral authority to question the Centre’s strategy, recalling how previous governments reacted passively to terror threats.
“What did the Congress do when terror attacks happened under their watch?” Amit Shah asked. “They simply changed a minister and moved on. They have no right to question our strong response.”
By making such sharp remarks on internal security and cross-border water diplomacy, Amit Shah reaffirmed the government’s stance that national interest will not be compromised — whether it involves strategic resources like river water or confronting terrorism with forceful action.
