• Pakistanis are not allowed to travel to India under Saarc Visa.
• Any Pakistani national currently in India has 48 hours leaving.
• India also reduces the overall strength of the High Commission to 30.

India suspended the Indus Water Treaty on Wednesday and banned the entry of Pakistani citizens, a day after the killing of at least 26 tourists in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

The new measures announced by New Delhi are marking a sharp escalation between the two nuclear -armed South Asian nations.

In a speech with journalists after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security India’s highest decision-making body on national security, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) detailed five measures as part of what officials called a “decisive response to cross-border terrorism”.

“The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 will be held in accordance with immediate effect until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjurs his support for cross-border terrorism,” the Indian diplomat Vikram Misri told New Delhi journalists.

The Indus Water Treaty is a water sharing agreement between Pakistan and India, relieved by the World Bank. It gives India control over the three eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas and Sutlej) in the Indus basin, while giving Pakistan authority over the three western rivers (Indus, Jhelum and Chenab).

Besides, he said, the integrated check -post Attari would be closed with immediate effect. “Those who have crossed with valid endorsements may return through this route before May 1, 2025,” he added.

“Pakistani citizens do not have permission to travel to India under the SaARC Visa exemption scheme (SSING). Any SVESSVISA issued in the past to Pakistani citizens is considered canceled, and any Pakistani citizen currently in India under Swedes Visa has 48 hours to leave India,” added dipomat.

Meanwhile, the bow rival also declared military, naval and air advisers in the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi Persona Non grata and asked them to leave the country within a week.

“India will withdraw its own defense advisers from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. These positions in the respective High Commissions are considered canceled,” he added.

In addition, India will also reduce its total strength for high commissions to 30 from the current 55, as the diplomat says would be completed by May 1, 2025.

The development came a day after 26 men were killed at a tourist destination in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir in the worst attack on civilians in the country for almost two decades.

At least 17 people were also wounded in the shooting, which took place on Tuesday in the Baisaran valley in the Pahaldam area of ​​the scenic, Himalaya Federal Territory Jammu and Kashmir. The dead included 25 Indians and a Nepalese national, police said.

It was the worst attack on civilians since the Mumbai shooting in 2008 and crushed the relative tranquility of IIOJK, where tourism has boomed as an anti-India uprising that has subsided in recent years.

The attack is seen as a setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Hunting for attackers

Security forces rushed to the Pahaldam area shortly after the attack and began to fight the forests there, told two security sources to Reuters. About 100 people suspected of being rebellious sympathizers in the past were called to police stations and questioned, they added.

Police also released sketches of three of the four suspects who were dressed in traditional long shirts and loose pants, and one of them was wearing a bodycam, a security source said. There were about 1,000 tourists and about 300 local service providers and workers in the valley when the attack took place, he said.

A little well-known group, “Kashmir resistance,” assumed responsibility for the attack in a social media message. It expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that more than 85,000 “outsiders” had been settled in the region and spurred for a “demographic change.”

“We are concerned about the loss of tourists’ life,” Pakistani spokesman for the Foreign Ministry Shafqat Ali Khan said in a statement. “We are expanding our condolences to the closest of the deceased and wishing the wounded a quick recovery.”

– With additional input from Reuters