Claim
After the Indus Waters Treaty was suspended, India stopped Pakistan's water, causing a water crisis and destroying agriculture from Sindh to Balochistan.
“अब सिंधु समझौता टूटने के बाद जैसे ही पाकिस्तान में त्राहि त्राहि हुई। पाकिस्तान में पानी के लिए हाहाकार मचा। हमने पाकिस्तान का पानी बंद किया। सिंध से लेकर बलूचिस्तान तक खेती बर्बाद होनी शुरू हुई।”▶ Watch source segment
Rationale
The treaty suspension itself is real (India placed the IWT in abeyance in April 2025), but the claim's core assertions — that India 'stopped Pakistan's water' and thereby caused a water crisis that 'destroyed agriculture from Sindh to Balochistan' — are not borne out. Water and hydrology experts agree India lacks the dams, diversion canals and storage on the western rivers to actually halt the flow, especially during the high-flow glacier-melt season; no cutoff of deliveries actually occurred. Sindh, at the tail of the Indus, faces long-term risk, but no destruction of its agriculture had materialized. Much of Balochistan lies outside the Indus basin (Kharan and Mekran basins) and is irrigated by local sources, so it would be largely unaffected. The statement presents a possible future risk and political rhetoric as an accomplished catastrophic fact, making it misleading.
Evidence
- https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/7/9/can-india-stop-pakistans-river-water-and-will-it-spark-a-new Experts state India cannot 'turn off the tap or divert the water'; its current infrastructure on the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) cannot control or hold back the large glacier- and monsoon-fed flows. ✓ reachable · archived
- https://www.csis.org/analysis/can-india-cut-pakistans-indus-river-lifeline India's upstream reservoirs on the western rivers have far too little storage to hold back water entirely, and May–September is high-flow glacier-melt season, so an immediate complete stoppage is not physically possible. ✓ reachable · archived
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Waters_Treaty Confirms only the first part of the claim: India held the treaty in abeyance on 23 April 2025 after the Pahalgam attack — a suspension, not an actual cutoff of water deliveries. ✓ reachable · archived
- https://www.dawn.com/news/231309/irrigation-schemes-for-balochistan Balochistan spans three hydrologic units — the Indus basin plus the independent Kharan desert and Mekran coastal basins — and much of its farming relies on local rivers, tubewells, karez and weirs, so 'agriculture destroyed from Sindh to Balochistan' by stopping Indus water is not supported. ✗ unreachable · HTTP 403