India Suspends Water Treaty with Pakistan, Latter Suspends Visas after Kashmir Attack

India has decided to suspend a decades-long water-sharing treaty with Pakistan, brokered by the World Bank, and will downgrade diplomatic relations with its neighbor, accusing it of involvement in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in years.

In a tit-for-tat measure against India, Pakistan has responded with suspending visas for Indians.

Militants killed 26 people, most of them tourists, in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government vowed to take "clear and loud" action in response. Although New Delhi has yet to provide public evidence linking the attack to its South Asian neighbor, it initiated punitive measures against Pakistan just a day after the attack.

Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said in a post on Twitter that the country's National Security Committee would meet on Thursday to respond to India's decisions. Meanwhile, Pakistan's defense minister said his country had no connection to Tuesday's attack, and no group has yet claimed responsibility.

Tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals could escalate in the coming days, potentially leading to more aggressive action. The two countries have fought major wars over Kashmir since 1947, a Himalayan region claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, but controlled in part by each. The last time the two sides came close to all-out war was in 2019, when 40 Indian security personnel were killed in a suicide attack. Jaish-e-Mohammad, a Pakistan-based jihadist group, claimed responsibility for the attack, prompting India to retaliate with its first airstrikes on Pakistani territory since 1971.

In a statement to the official Associated Press of Pakistan, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said that India cannot unilaterally suspend the water treaty, as it would violate international law. Water Resources Minister Mian Moin Wattoo added that his country will not bow to pressure and will respond to any Indian aggression.

The Indus River, which flows from India to Pakistan, is a lifeline for millions of farmers in both countries. Suspending water sharing could severely impact crop production in Pakistan, at a time when the country is still recovering economically with the help of an International Monetary Fund bailout.

Pant said the initial message of this response was that India was targeting Pakistani society through the treaty, as the victims were civilians.

The actions taken by India after the attack are the most severe since 2019, when it launched airstrikes on suspected militant camps inside Pakistani territory. However, Pant warned that "any overreaction" could create challenges for the Modi government, adding that "Pakistan is considered almost marginal in India's larger calculations, so over-exploiting this issue could also be problematic."

While Indian stocks largely ignored the impact of the escalating tensions, Pakistani stocks fell on Thursday.