Federal Minister for Climate Change and Environmental Coordination Musadik Malik has said that India was manipulating the flow of the Indus River system by “holding and releasing, holding and then flooding” to disrupt Pakistan’s crop patterns and food security.
In an interview with Bloomberg in London on Monday, Malik noted that “when the water was needed for crop sowing, it was not available” over the past month.
“It is to disturb the crop patterns and the food security of Pakistan,” he said, adding that the government does not yet have estimates for crop damage.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government unilaterally suspended the Indus Waters Treaty in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) on April 22.
In early May as tensions escalated between the neighbors, the Chenab river’s water flow was cut to nearly 90% below the usual volume that passes to Pakistan, according to Muhammad Khalid Idrees Rana, spokesman for Pakistan’s Indus River System Authority.
The Times of India had reported that India has been flushing and desilting reservoirs at the Baglihar and Salal hydropower projects on the Chenab, which can disrupt normal flows, and plans other maintenance measures during the treaty suspension.
