Pakistan and India are at odds after the deadly Kashmir attack

India’s Response to the Kashmir War: A Prime Minister’s Call for Closer Borders with Pakistan and a Sufficient Water Treaty

Analysts say thousands of civilians and Indian military personnel have been killed in Kashmir since armed militancy took root in the early 1990s. The Himalayan valley has seen a lot of violence over the last few years, and it was due to the revocation of the region’s administrative autonomy that the law was passed by the Indian Parliament. For many months after, movement of Kashmiris were restricted and local politicians were imprisoned after mobile and internet communications were blocked.

The tensions began rising after India pointed the blame at Pakistan for Tuesday’s deadly attack, in which gunmen ambushed tourists in a scenic meadow in Pahalgam and killed 26 men, mostly Hindus. The gunmen in some cases asked their victims if they were Muslim before killing them, according to Eyewitnesses.

According to Asif, the reason for the killings is the Hindutva government’s exploitation and killing of religious minorities. The attackers, he said, were India’s “homegrown rebels.”

A week must be left for Pakistan’s military advisers in New Delhi to leave India. Misri said India will be withdrawing its counterparts from Islamabad too. These decisions, he said, were made in a meeting chaired by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia to return to India following news of Tuesday’s attack.

Following the Indian measures, Pakistan’s national security committee on Thursday announced a ban on Indian aircraft from Pakistani airspace. It also announced a suspension of all trade with India and the expulsion of a number of Indian diplomats. The number of employees at the diplomatic missions in both countries will go down from 55 to 30 by the end of April.

“Water is a Vital National Interest of Pakistan, a lifeline for its 240 million people and its availability will be safeguarded at all costs,” the statement read. “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.”

India has decided to close the border with Pakistan and suspend the water treaty after a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir.

“It’s essentially more like domination and oppression than engagement and support. So, with this kind of politics, which is of exclusion and oppression and targeting, the emotional distance between Kashmir and Delhi has increased even further than what it has historically been,” he says.

The jingoism surrounding the attacks is not related to the security or political failures, according to a lecturer in South Asian studies at Yale University.

India has not, so far, presented public evidence of Pakistani involvement in the attack. India’s right-wing news channels have blamed Pakistan and featured calls for retaliation. But some Indian defense analysts caution against armed action.

In Tuesday’s attack, a little-known militant group called Kashmir Resistance claimed responsibility. It said in a post on Telegram that the attack was revenge for the changes seen in the valley.

Tension between India and Pakistan increased Thursday after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to take action against those behind Tuesday’s deadly attack in India-administered Kashmir.

In an English speech, Modi said India will identify, track and punish terrorists and their supporters.

Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister Ishaq Dar denied Pakistani involvement in a press conference Thursday. “India has time and again played the blame game,” he said, “and if there is proof of Pakistan’s involvement, please share it with us and the world.”

Indian officials and media noted the attack came days after Pakistan’s army chief Gen. Asim Munir described Kashmir as his country’s “jugular vein.” Pakistan and India each own parts of the Himalayan territory. Both countries claim it in its entirety, and have gone to war over Kashmir multiple times.

On Wednesday, India’s foreign secretary announced a series of moves to pressure Pakistan, including expelling diplomats, shuttering a border crossing and crucially, suspending a decades-old water treaty between the two countries.

Pakistan said it would consider any move by India to hold back water as an “act of war,” according to a statement released by the office of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

On the Kashmir attack of Tuesday night, an Indian citizen’s voice in power: When the Indian government gets rid of India, and if it fails to do so, why does it bother Pakistan?

On Thursday, the Kashmir police released a wanted poster with the names and sketches of three people they say were involved in Tuesday’s attack. It identified two of them as Pakistani nationals and offered a cash reward of more than $20,000 for information leading to their “neutralization.”

A union purportedly representing the Indian film industry workers demanded the government ban an upcoming Bollywood film featuring Pakistani actor Fawad Khan. The Pakistan government’s handle was blocked by India on Thursday.

“India has a freer hand to escalate for the simple reason that it does not have any alliances or military partnerships,” says Ajai Shukla, a strategic affairs commentator and retired Indian army colonel. There is a downside to having India fighting alone. There are restrictions on the weaponry it can buy. Pakistan, China, and many other countries tend to join forces against India.

“If India shuts off communication on water flow to Pakistan, that’s it,” says an independent water analyst from Pakistan. In the long term, he warns, India could build dams, effectively reducing Pakistan’s access to water.