‘Won’t allow India to snatch even one drop’: After Munir and Bilawal, Sharif threatens India

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday said India would not be allowed to snatch "even one drop" of water belonging to Pakistan, amid tensions between the two neighbours.

A day after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, India took a series of punitive measures against Pakistan that included putting the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 in "abeyance".

Pakistan has repeatedly warned that any interference to stop the water would be treated as an act of war.

"I want to tell the enemy today that if you threaten to hold our water, then keep this in mind that you cannot snatch even one drop of water belonging to Pakistan,” Sharif said while addressing a ceremony here.

He warned that if India attempted such an act, “you will be again taught such a lesson that you will be left holding your ears”.

A day earlier, former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari termed the IWT's suspension an attack on the Indus Valley Civilisation and said the nation would not back down if New Delhi forced it into war.

In an address to the Pakistani diaspora in Tampa, Florida, Army chief Asim Munir reportedly said Islamabad would destroy any dam if it cut off water flow to Pakistan.

"We will wait for India to build a dam, and when they do so, we will destroy it,” he was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper. “The Indus river is not the Indians' family property. We have no shortage of resources to undo the Indian designs to stop the river."