‘Our blood has been sucked’: J&K CM Omar hits back at Pak PM Shehbaz over IWT

India placed the treaty in abeyance last year following the Pahalgam terror attack

SRINAGAR: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warned at an event in Islamabad on Friday that Pakistan would take any step to protect its water rights under the Indus Waters Treaty, saying “every single drop” of Pakistan’s water is a “red line” and “India must come to the right path” or it would “be given a direct response”. His comments drew a reaction from Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah who said the treaty has been kept in abeyance and should remain so.“Yes, our blood. We have been saying this only, that our blood has been sucked. Thankfully Shehbaz Sharif came to his senses. This (IWT) has sucked the blood out of us. These are our rivers. We have the first right on them,” Omar told reporters here. “For the sake of saying, Pakistanis say that they are great sympathisers of Kashmiris. But when it comes to water, their sympathy disappears. Where was his sympathy when our permission to use our rivers was taken away from us,” the CM said.“Out of the six rivers, three which belonged to Punjab were kept by India and our three rivers were handed over to Pakistan. From then till today we are suffering the consequences of this Indus Waters Treaty,” Omar said, adding that under the treaty J&K could neither extract drinking water from the Chenab nor use the Jhelum for irrigation or building a barrage at Tulbul. “Our blood has been sucked and now the IWT has been cancelled. This should remain cancelled so that we can use this water properly,” Omar added.The IWT was signed between India and Pakistan in 1960. Under the treaty, India received full rights to use the waters of the three eastern rivers, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, while Pakistan received rights over the three western rivers, Indus, Chenab and Jhelum.

India placed the treaty in abeyance last year following the Pahalgam terror attack. In May last year, after the treaty was placed in abeyance, Omar called for restarting the Tulbul Navigation Project on Wular Lake in north Kashmir. The project is located on Wular Lake in the Sopore area of Baramulla district. Pakistan has opposed construction of a 439-foot-long, 40-foot-wide barrage, also known as the Wular barrage or Tulbul Navigation Project, with a navigation lock on the lake.The Union govt began work on the project in 1984 to regulate water levels and facilitate navigation. However, work was halted a year later after Pakistan objected. Pakistan raised the issue with the Indus Waters Commission in 1986 and work was stopped in 1987.The governing National Conference in J&K has opposed the IWT all along, calling it detrimental to the interests of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.