New Delhi: Days after India and Pakistan mutually agreed to stop armed hostilities along the Line of Control, Pakistan military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry has been making a series of inflammatory comments on the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT).
India’s unilateral suspension of the 1960 World Bank-brokered IWT was part of a broader set of punitive measures announced by New Delhi in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack. New Delhi has also stressed that Operation Sindoor is “paused” and “not over”.
In a video circulating on social media, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Lt. Gen. Chaudhry can be seen echoing a statement made by Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed.
Shared by Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui, Lt. Gen. Chaudhry delivers a speech at a Pakistani university claiming, “Tum hamara paani band kar doge, hum tumhara saans band kar denge. (If you stop our water, we will stop your breath).”
🔴#BREAKING Pakistani military spokesperson @OfficialDGISPR is at a university in Pakistan delivering hate and violence-encouraging speeches against India echoing what terrorist Hafiz Saeed said some years ago !
Shameful! pic.twitter.com/W7ckNPePOH
— Taha Siddiqui (@TahaSSiddiqui) May 22, 2025
Calling it shameful, Siddiqui also added that the remark closely resembles a statement allegedly made by the Lashkar-e-Taiba chief, who, in a widely circulated video, is heard saying, “If you stop the water, God willing, we will stop your breath, and then blood shall flow in these rivers.” Social media users were quick to highlight the striking similarity between the two comments.
In an interview to Al Jazeera later, the ISPR Director General also brought in Kashmir, while discussing the Indus Water Treaty.
“If the people of Kashmir decide to join Pakistan, all those rivers will belong to us, making India a lower riparian state. At that point, it will be for Pakistan to decide how to deal with that situation,” he told the news channel Thursday.
His remarks came in response to PM Narendra Modi’s recent statement asserting that Pakistan would no longer receive water from rivers over which India holds rights.
Lt. Gen. Chaudhry claimed that six rivers originate in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) region, which he described as disputed territory under the United Nations resolutions.
India, meanwhile, Thursday reiterated that the IWT with Pakistan will remain suspended until Islamabad takes “credible and irreversible” steps to end its support for cross-border terrorism, reaffirming that “water and blood cannot flow together.”
Addressing the media, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal made it clear that any future dialogue with Pakistan would be limited to the issue of Pakistan vacating illegally occupied territories in Jammu and Kashmir.
“You are well aware of our position that any India-Pakistan engagement has to be bilateral,” Jaiswal said, in response to a question about US President Donald Trump expressing interest in mediating the Kashmir dispute. “But I must remind you: talks and terror cannot go hand in hand.”
Jaiswal stressed that any discussion related to Jammu and Kashmir would focus solely on Pakistan’s withdrawal from territories it currently occupies.
Regarding the status of the Indus Waters Treaty, he confirmed, “It will remain in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism. As our Prime Minister has said, ‘Water and blood cannot flow together.’”
The MEA spokesperson also noted that India is open to discussions with Pakistan on the extradition of terrorists whose names were provided in a list shared several years ago.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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Lt. Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry is nothing but a terrorist. His father is a UN-designated terrorist.
Terrorism is the family profession. Quite naturally, he is an ardent admirer of Hafiz Saeed and other such terrorists.