Centre will not provide Balakot casualty figure, says Nirmala

New Delhi: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday refused to provide a figure for the number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists said to have been killed in the Indian Air Force's strikes on the outfit's camp in Pakistan's Balakot on February 26. "The Foreign Secretary [Vijay Gokhale] didn't give a figure," she told reporters. "He gave a statement. That is the Government of India's position."

The air strikes were carried out in response to a terrorist attack on a Central Reserve Police Force convoy in Kashmir's Pulwama on February 14, which killed 40 soldiers.

Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa on Monday said that the Indian Air Force is not in a position to count the number of casualties in the cross-border strikes. He said the government would provide such a number. On Sunday, BJP chief Amit Shah claimed that over 250 terrorists were killed in the attacks.

Sitharaman also parried a question about whether India will release satellite imagery of the area which was struck. "Well, I can't say it now," the defence minister said.

Sitharaman said the attack on Balakot was not military action, but merely a "pointed hit" that India decided to make on Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist camps. "We ensured no civilian there were affected in the attack," she said.

The defence minister added that both the National Democratic Alliance and the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance governments had given Pakistan evidence of terror training camps in its territory. However, Pakistan has not dismantled any terror camp, she added.

The defence minister also denied any connection between the air strikes and the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. "There is no relationship between the air strike and elections," she said. "It was based upon intelligence inputs on terrorist activities in Pakistan, to be unleashed against India."

However, Home Minister Rajnath Singh Tuesday said the number of terrorists killed in the air strike by Indian Air Force on the training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed in Pakistan's Balakot would be known in a day or two.

He claimed that the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) system had informed about the presence of around 300 active mobile phones at the site before the air strike by India.

Charging the opposition of doing politics over the strike, the Home Minister suggested the Congress go to Pakistan and count the bodies if they want to know how many terrorists were killed.

"Some leaders of the other political parties are asking how many terrorists were killed in the IAF strike. Today or tomorrow, it will be known. Pakistan and their leaders' heart know how many were killed," Singh said while addressing the public after inaugurating a border project by the BSF. See P5