Shashi Tharoor calls Indus Waters Treaty ‘more of a symbolic gesture’, rejects Pakistan's ‘neutral’ probe offer

Rejecting Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's offer for a ‘neutral’ probe into the Pahalgam terror attack, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday hit out at the former, highlighted the "human cost of people being forced to go back", and called the Indus Waters Treaty “more of a symbolic gesture at this point”.

While talking to ANI in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram, Tharoor said, “…When the government wants to send a strong signal that normal relations are no longer possible, ordinary human beings inevitably become the victims... The Indus Water Treaty is more of a symbolic gesture at this point.”

Tharoor was referring to a slew of measures that the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has taken following the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam district which killed 26 people and injured several others on April 22.

Taking note of the cross-border linkages of the terrorist attack, the CCS on April 23, held The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 in abeyance with immediate effect, and cancelled the visas issued to Pakistani nationals under the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES), directing them to leave India by April 27. Pakistani nationals with medical visas have been given time till April 29 to leave India, according to a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement.

Tharoor rejects Pakistan's probe offer

The Congress leader, in a sharp response to Pakistan's Prime Minister, said he had no interest in Islamabad's participation in any investigation. He rejected Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif's offer of a ‘neutral’ probe into the Pahalgam attack by saying, “You do not ask a murderer to investigate his own murders,” news agency ANI reported.

Pakistan's PM Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday expressed Islamabad's willingness to participate in a “neutral, transparent, and credible" probe into to Pahalgam terror attack, a Dawn report said.

PM Sharif said, “Continuing with its role as a responsible country, Pakistan is open to participating in any neutral, transparent and credible investigation.”

‘The human cost of…’

While expressing concern over Pakistani nationals being asked to leave India, Tharoor said “the human cost of people being forced to go back is sad”.

“The human cost of people being forced to go back is sad. Patients here will have to go back in the middle of their treatment. There are husbands and wives across the borders. There are complicated cases where the parent has the passport of one country while the child has the passport of another. I feel sorry for them. But when the government wants to send a strong signal that normal relations are no longer possible, ordinary human beings inevitably become the victims,” ANI quoted Tharoor as saying.

According to a Hindustan Times report, several Indian women married to Pakistani nationals were left stranded at the Attari-Wagah border after they were stopped from crossing the border. The CCS had shut the Attari-Wagah border and directed those who had crossed over with valid endorsements to return through that route before May 1, 2025.

Among the stranded, the report said, was Washin Jahangir, 38, who had come to India with her sister and two nieces about a month ago for asthma treatment. While Jahangir and her sister were barred from crossing the border, their daughters, who are Pakistani nationals, were sent back, the report said.

“My husbands and two sons are waiting for me across the border. I have been granted half nationality by Pakistan. I have all the documents, still I have been stopped,” Jahangir told HT.

Wajida Khan, another Indian national, was also stopped by BSF authorities after seeing her Indian passport. She told HT, “I was married in Pakistan 10 years ago. I have two children, aged 7 and 8, both Pakistan nationals. After I was stopped, I had to send them home alone.”