India suspends Indus pact, scraps Pak visas over Valley terror attack

Shuts Attari border, downgrades diplomatic ties; all-party meet today

- ARCHIS MOHAN

India on Wednesday evening suspended the Indus Waters Treaty and downgraded diplomatic ties with Pakistan, a day after 26 people—mostly tourists—were killed in a terrorist attack in Jammu & Kashmir's Pahalgam.

The government said the attack had "cross-border linkages" and announced it was putting the 1960 treaty in abeyance with immediate effect, pending Pakistan's "credible and irrevocable" renunciation of support for cross-border terrorism.

New Delhi also halted trade through the Attari border, expelled defence officials, who were declared persona non grata, from Pakistan's High Commission, and reduced diplomatic strength from 55 to 30, with just a week to leave the country. It also cancelled all visas granted to Pakistani nationals under the Saarc Visa Exemption Scheme, ordering their departure within 48 hours.

India's response, its severest in recent decades, came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had landed in Delhi in the morning after cutting short his visit to Saudi Arabia, chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), which lasted for over two hours. Addressing a press briefing after the CCS concluded, India's foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, read out a statement that said that the cross-border linkages of the terrorist attack were brought out during the CCS meeting.

The CCS resolved that the perpetrators of the attacks would be brought to justice and their sponsors held to account, citing the example of 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack accused Tahawwur Rana, who was recently extradited.