INDIA - Last week’s attack on tourists in contested Kashmir has pushed already fraught relations between the two nuclear-armed rivals into a new, unpredictable phase. On Wednesday India placed the 1960 Indus Waters treaty in “abeyance” — a signal that one of the last remaining buffers of stability between the two countries is beginning to crumble. Islamabad said that any attempt to stop or divert water belonging to Pakistan would amount to an act of war. On Friday the Indian minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said: “Not a single drop of water meant for India will be allowed to flow into Pakistan.” His response suggested that Delhi might be serious about “weaponising” rivers that are lifelines for millions of people in neighbouring Pakistan. “It’s worrisome,” said Peter Gleick, a global water policy expert, author of The Three Ages of Water and a member of the US Academy of Sciences. “This treaty has withstood all crises. For India to use it now as a lever against Pakistan is a disturbing sign of the growing use around the world of water as a tool of conflict.”