'If you cut off our water, we will cut off your breathing'! Pak Army chief threatens India

Pakistan has again threatened India on the Indus Waters Treaty. Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Pakistan Army spokesperson, joined a show on Thursday and told India, "If you stop our water, we will stop your breathing." Interestingly, in a recently viral video, Hafiz Saeed, chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba, was seen telling India the same thing. 

India's View on Pakistani Provocation

New Delhi is treating the recent aggressive statements by the Pakistani army chief as provocation. India has not yet made an official statement about it. Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed has issued provocative statements against India and America countless times. The very similarity of his statement with that of a high-ranking Pakistani army officer is taken as prima facie evidence of militant-military nexus by many Indians.

Indus Waters Treaty on Hold

On April 22, a terror attack at Pahalgaon killed 26 individuals. New Delhi put on hold the Indus Waters Treaty with Islamabad following hints that Pakistan-sponsored militants were behind the attack. The treaty was signed in 1960 to seal the terms under which waters of the Indus and its tributaries would be divided between the two nations. The World Bank was involved in the accord.

Pakistan's Threats

Pakistani threats to the Indus Waters Treaty are not new. In late April, during the increased tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the head of Pakistan's ruling alliance partner, Pakistan People's Party (PPP), declared, "Indus is ours. Either the water we deserve will come through the Indus River, or their (Indian) blood will flow through the Indus." This time, the statement was made by the Pakistani military spokesman.