In view of the cross-border linkages to the Pahalgam attack, India announced a raft of punitive measures, including the suspension of the 65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty, closing of the Attari land-border crossing and the expulsion of Pakistani military attaches.
Pakistan minister Hanif Abbasi is the new entrant in the ‘war threat’ club after Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. Days after India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty over cross-border links to the Pahalgam terror attack, that left 26 civilians dead, Abbasi said that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not for display and have been kept “only for India.”
Reacting to India’s decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty – a watersharing agreement between Delhi and Islamabad, Abbasi warned of nuclear retaliation. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including Ghori, Shaheen and Ghaznavi missiles along with 130 nuclear warheads, has been hidden across the country, Abbasi said.
“If they stop the water supply to us, then they should be ready for a war,” Abbasi was quoted as saying by Pak media outlets. “The missiles we have, they’re not for display. Nobody knows where we have placed our nuclear weapons across the country. I say it again, these ballistic missiles, all of them are targeted at you,” he said.
Earlier, Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had claimed that the cash-strapped “would make India pay if Pakistani citizens were harmed.” “If India conducts acts of terrorism in our cities, it will be a tit for tat and we will make them pay,”
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also joined the club over the suspension of Indus Waters Treaty. “The Indus is ours and will remain ours. Either our water will flow through it, or their blood will,” Bhutto was quoted as saying at a public rally on Friday.
26 civilians, mostly tourists, were killed after terrorists from The Resistance Front (TRF) – an offshoot of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba opened fire at Baisaran meadow in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
In view of the cross-border linkages to the Pahalgam attack, India on Wednesday announced a raft of punitive measures, including the suspension of the 65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty, closing of the Attari land-border crossing and the expulsion of Pakistani military attaches.