From Indus Treaty to LoC, Potential Terrain of India-Pak Conflict Widens; Pahalgam Provocation—and a Dangerous Trap India Must Not Fall Into

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

April 24, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

In a reaction that underlines the very real danger of military – and even nuclear – confrontation between India and Pakistan, Islamabad today reacted to India’s decision to hold the Indus Water Treaty ‘in abeyance’ with a sharp statement of its own:

“Any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan as per the Indus Waters Treaty, and the usurpation of the rights of lower riparian will be considered as an Act of War and responded with full force across the complete spectrum of national power.”

As Devirupa Mitra reminds us, the reference to the complete spectrum of national power was “a not-so-veiled allusion to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.”

We have known since at least 2002, when Paolo Cotta-Ramusino of Pugwash got a chance to interview General Khalid Kidwai—head of Pakistan’s Strategic