Pakistan panics after Chenab inflow from India plunges: 'From 98,200 to 7,200 cusecs'
All gates of Salal Dam on the Chenab River were closed following suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty | PTI
Barely days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Pakistan will not get water from rivers over which India has rights in response to the Pahalgam terrorist attack, Pakistan has claimed that the water inflow from India in Chenab has plunged from 98,200 cusecs on Thursday to 7,200 cusecs on Saturday.
The statement from Pakistan's Water and Power Development Authority came just a day after the country's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif threatened Pakistan wouldn't let India "cross the red line" on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). India had held the IWT in abeyance in response to the deadly attack on Indians in Kashmir's Pahalgam.
A statement from Pakistan's Water and Power Development Authority said the inflow of water at Chenab River at Marala Headworks (situated near Sialkot) was 98,200 cusecs on Thursday. It dropped to 44,800 cusecs on Friday before plunging further to 7,200 cusecs on Saturday. The statement said "no water was being discharged."
Just days after India announced its decision to suspend IWT, Pakistan had witnessed Chenab drying up. On May 5, Pakistan claimed, "India restricted flows through Jammu’s Baglihar and Salal hydroelectric dams on the Chenab that runs onto Pakistan". At that time, the Chenab's flow had reduced from 35,600 to 3,177 cusecs.
An irrigation department official from Pakistan's Punjab province had then accused India of "using our water to fill up their dams and hydropower projects in the Chenab basin". However, the Pakistani government has yet to provide evidence to back up its claims.
The current situation comes as Sharif, during his tour to Tajikistan, threatened India against its decision to put the treaty in abeyance. He said that "Pakistan would not allow India to cross the red line by holding the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance".
Sharif also accused India of holding "millions of lives hostage to narrow political gains" while he deftly avoided any mention of the Pahalgam terror attack, that saw 26 Indians gunned down. "Pakistan will not allow this. We will never allow the red line to be crossed," Sharif proclaimed.
The current situation in Chenab came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated that "Pakistan will not get water from rivers over which India has rights", a statement seen as a rejection of Pakistan's "willingness to discuss water issue".
"Pakistan will have to pay a heavy price for every terrorist attack ... Pakistan's army will pay it. Pakistan's economy will pay it," Modi said in Rajasthan.
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