Claim: During a recent interview, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif advised people suffering due to the torrential rains and floods in the 2025 monsoon season to collect and store water in their bathtubs. Floodwater should be considered a blessing, he said, adding that they should collect water in their homes as it may take 10 years to build big dams.
Fact: Asif’s remarks from the interview were trimmed and presented out of context. He was, in fact, speaking — sarcastically — about the protesters who staged sit-ins against the proposed construction of six new canals on the Indus river. The project’s approval was eventually overturned in April 2025, prior to this year’s monsoon season. The minister further noted that rainwater was a blessing if stored properly through a system of dams and emphasised that rather than waiting for the construction of big dams, Pakistan should focus on building smaller dams that would be less capital-intensive and completed quickly.
On 30 August 2025, Instagram account @thedailyinside published (archive) a post with an illustration of Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif speaking on a podium, as well a headline that reads, “Pakistan Sinks, Ministers Talk Nonsense Not Even Surprised.”
Next to Asif is a block of text stating, “TREAT WATER AS A BLESSING; STORE AT FLOODWATER HOME; DAMS MAY TAKE 10 YEARS TO BUILD.”
The post is accompanied by the following caption:
“Floods? Just Store Them in Your Bathtub. Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has basically told the nation: ‘Don’t stress about dams, just grab a bucket.’ In a statement that has people double-checking if it was satire, he advised citizens to treat floodwater as a ‘blessing’ and store it in their homes – yes, even in tubs and bathrooms. Why? Because according to him, dams will take ten years to build. So instead of actual solutions to floods, Pakistanis get DIY water storage hacks from the government. Punjab may be drowning, but hey – at least your bathtub’s full. For many, it’s just another reminder that when it comes to climate disasters, the people are left with buckets while the rulers give speeches.”
Some other posts, such as this one (archive), include a snippet from a talk show, in which the federal minister can be heard saying, “Those people who were blocking the roads can go ahead and store this water. They can take all of it home and store it, maybe keep it in a bathroom or a tub there. This water should be considered a blessing by storing water [and] for that, big dams…”
The video ends right after Asif says “big dams”. The post in question is captioned as follows:
“لوگوں کو یہ پانی گھر لے جا کر جمع کر لینا چاہیے، کسی حمام یا ٹب میں ڈال لینا چاہیے اس پانی کو نعمت سمجھیں اور گھر میں جمع کر لیں بڑے ڈیم بننے میں دس دس سال لگ سکتے ہیں وزیر دفاع خواجہ آصف کا سیلاب کا زور توڑنے کے لیے عوام کو مشورہ
[People should take this water home and store it, keep it in a bathroom or a tub. Consider this water a blessing and store it at home. It may take 10 years to build large dams. Defense Minister Khawaja Asif advises the public to break the intensity of the flood.]”
Monsoon causes destruction in Pakistan
Pakistan’s monsoon season began in June 2025, wreaking havoc in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Punjab, and Sindh provinces. This, coupled with the release of water from Indian dams, contributed to widespread flooding due to overflowing rivers, including Sutlej, Chenab, and Ravi.
Swollen rivers and floodwater submerged the villages, agricultural land, and residential areas situated along the edge of the rivers in Punjab.
The overall death toll from flash floods in Pakistan was over 1,000 as of 19 September, according to data (archive) compiled by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which revealed that more than 500 of these fatalities were in KP.
Additionally, upwards of 1,000 people have been injured, 12,500 houses destroyed, and 6,500 livestock have perished since 6 June, according to the NDMA.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check traced the origin of the claim to an episode (archive) of Dunya News’ programme “Tonight with Samar Abbas,” aired on 30 August 2025.
At the 37:30 mark, Abbas, the talk show host, poses a question to the defence minister asking, “Tell us, Khawaja sahab, that Prime Minister [Shehbaz Sharif] has once again emphasised the importance of building dams. With regard to dams, he has said that once this emergency situation calms down, he will call a meeting to build a consensus for building dams. Will you be able to convince Sindh this time around?”
Asif’s response starts at the 37:52 mark and ends at the 39:39 mark. The minister says, “Sindh never criticised the dams. We can build dams there and in Sindh as well. That was a canal issue… a disagreement … and that too, according to my information, it was politicised. Sindh’s water or any other province’s water was not being used in it.
“Those people who were blocking the roads can go ahead and store this water. They can take all of it home and store it, maybe keep it in a bathroom or a tub there. We should consider this water a blessing by storing water [and] for that, big dams may take eight to 10 years and they must be built, there’s no doubt about that. For that, many billions, 10, 15, 20 billion is required.
“However, if you build dozens of smaller dams in pluvial areas, then I believe they can be constructed quickly and they won’t be capital-intensive, they won’t require as much money … these small dams… each dam can easily irrigate 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 or 10,000 acres [of land]. Water will be stored. When water will be stored in such a massive area — if you construct 100, 150, 200 dams — then it will also bring a change in climate.”
PM Sharif for building water storage capacity
Abbas, the talk show host, was referring to Sharif’s address in Narowal on 28 August, when the prime minister had called for strengthening the country’s water storage capacity in a bid to reduce floods in the future.
Building more capacity would “reduce flash floods and control the cascading effect”, he had said, according to Dawn. “Pakistan, the centre and the provinces, [has] the capacity that if we sit together, we will find the solution to this. Similarly, we can build small dams in the north. If we start this today, even then it will take many years to complete this great project.”
“Whether it is the Basha [Bhasha] Dam, the Momin [Mohmand] Dam or smaller dams in Punjab and the north, this is the work that we must start today,” Sharif said, according to Arab News. The premier urged for work in this regard to be initiated immediately as “major projects take years to complete”, The Express Tribune reported.
Asif’s remark about six-canal protesters
In his response on Abbas’ show, Asif was actually making a sarcastic remark about the protests that became more widespread in November 2024 against a proposed six-canal project on the Indus river. Soch Videos, our sister company, covered one such demonstration on 17 November 2024.
The minister made a jibe at the protesters who had staged sit-ins, saying they could “go ahead and store” the floodwater. “They can take all of it home and store it, maybe keep it in a bathroom or a tub there,” he had stated.
As for the remark about considering water a “blessing”, he was speaking in the context of building dams to store such floodwater, which otherwise flows into the Arabian Sea while wreaking destruction in its path. According to Asif, storing it could benefit the entire nation.
In Pakistan, rain — which should actually be a blessing — actually leads to devastation due to flooding and landslides, partly caused by encroachments and illegal construction.
While he did note that big dams may take years to build, he emphasised that it was better to construct “dozens of smaller dams in pluvial areas” as they could be completed quickly and would not be “capital-intensive”.
The six-canal project
The megaproject, comprising a network of six canals, was part of the PKR 945-billion Green Pakistan Initiative (GPI), which was “an ambitious agricultural project with the aim of boosting food security” in the country, Al Jazeera reported. Critics had warned that “the project was planned without consent from stakeholders” and would “further stress Pakistan’s river system”, it added.
“Sindh, as a lower riparian province, fear(ed) that losing water to upstream developments could spell disaster,” the publication said.
Numerous protests against the six-canal project were held across Sindh since 2024, with Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari saying “his party rejected the government’s canal project” and terming the decision “unilateral”.
Interestingly, however, it was his father, President Asif Ali Zardari, who gave the “approvals for the ‘six strategic canals’” in July 2024 “after his meeting with GPI officials”, Al Jazeera noted. Citing the meeting minutes, the publication mentioned that “Zardari approved their ‘simultaneous execution’ while urging consistent funding from both federal and provincial governments”.
Eventually, the project was put on hold after the Council of Common Interests (CCI) “rejected the federal government’s proposal”, thereby “overturning an earlier decision by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) made in February [2025]”, The Express Tribune reported on 28 April 2025.
At the time, Asif — the minister — had said the protesters’ demand was “accepted unconditionally” as the government did “not want a national disagreement to arise on the water issue”, according to the Daily Jang, which cited his remarks from Geo News’ programme “Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Saath.”
Asif’s consistent views about floodwater, dams
Interestingly, before the talk show, the minister had emphasised that Pakistan’s priority should be to build a consensus on the construction of dams rather than engaging in political debates, according to a 29 August 2025 report by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP). “He said that although large dams require more time and resources, small dams can be built quickly in rainy areas to address water storage problems and environmental challenges,” the publication wrote.
In a speech in the National Assembly on 1 September 2025, Asif made the same remarks as he did two days before on Abbas’ show on 30 August.
At the 8:18 mark of the recording of his close-to-18-minute speech, the minister had said:
“It would take 12-15 years for the big dams you’re talking about to be constructed, whether it be the [Diamer] Bhasha Dam or the Mohmand Dam. I’m not saying don’t build them; definitely build them but until those dams are built, what would become of the country? Where would we be by that time? Would you have anything left to lose while waiting for those dams [to be constructed]? Build hundreds of small dams, which can be completed in one, two or three years. Build reservoirs. We’re wasting water by letting it go to the sea.
“[Lawmaker Syed] Naveed Qamar said just now that it [the land] would become a desert. Water would become such a precious commodity, you’d be begging for water. Mr Speaker, whatever physical or technical actions need to be taken, that’s fine, but we need to change our attitudes. These are national issues, there shouldn’t be disagreements. We need to at least have a consensus on the minimum agendas, which are related to the public and not to our politics or our power.
“Don’t block roads over talks about [proposed] canals or dams. That’s political business. The water from Sutlej will go to Sindh and from thereon to the Arabian Sea. Similarly, the water in the Ravi river — it’s seasonal water, it doesn’t regularly visit us like Chenab, Jhelum, Indus, it visits us occasionally — so when it visits us, we should store it and not do politics on it.”
A few days later, he again spoke about how “building large dams could take up to seven years” but that “smaller dams offered a quicker solution and broader coverage”, according to a 4 September report by The Nation.
Therefore, given the evidence above, Soch Fact Check concludes that Asif’s remarks were strategically-trimmed and presented out of context in the post being fact-checked.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found that the video was rehashed by social media users, many of whom seem to be supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), according to their profiles. Some examples can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. In fact, party leader Qasim Khan Suri also posted it on his accounts.
On the other hand, the false claim also gained popularity in India, where it was posted here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Publications, such as The Times of India, NDTV, India Today, Republic World, Zee News, Free Press Journal, The Daily Jagran, and Opindia, also published it.
Pakistani media outlet Aaj News also posted the claim on its Facebook page.
The claim also surfaced on LinkedIn and Reddit.
Conclusion: The video in the claim was trimmed and Asif’s remarks were presented out of context. He was, in fact, speaking — sarcastically — about the protesters who staged sit-ins against the proposed construction of six new canals on the Indus river, a project whose approval was eventually overturned in April 2025. He further noted that rainwater was a blessing if stored properly through a system of dams and emphasised that Pakistan should focus on constructing smaller dams that would be less capital-intensive and built quickly.
Background image in cover photo: khawajaAsifofficial
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