Balakot airstrike: After Amit Shah, now Rajnath Singh hints at casualties

Home Minister Rajnath Singh had on Tuesday came very close to confirm unofficial figure of 300 which has been in circulation since the air strike on February 26. Home Minister said that earlier National Technical Research Organisation said some 300 mobile phones were active at the JeM camp before the Indian Air Force's Mirage 2000 fighter jets bombed it.

"The NTRO, which has an authentic system, said that 300 mobile phones were active... Were these mobile phones used by the trees? Now will you not believe the NTRO also?" the Home Minister said. He was in Assam to inaugurate a surveillance system of the BSF in Assam's Dhubri on Tuesday.

"India's respected and authentic NTRO surveillance system has said that before Indian pilots dropped the bombs, 300 mobile phones were active there. There's no need to tell you how many were killed," Singh said, according to news agency Reuters.

The war of words between the BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the opposition intensified after party chief Amit Shah during a public rally in Gujarat, claimed over 250 terrorists were killed in the Balakot air strike.

Whereas the Air Force had said it does not count any casualty figures. "Air Force is not in a position to clarify how many people were inside. We don't count human casualties. We count what targets we have hit or not hit," Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said on Monday.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said the government has already made its position on the casualty figures clear in a statement issued by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale on the day the air strike took place. Foreign Secretary had not given any casualty figures.

The Air Force on February 26 hit the Jaish-e-Mohammed's camp in Balakot, inside Pakistan, over a week after a suicide bomber detonated a mini-van laden with explosives on Jammu-Srinagar highway, killing 40 CRPF soldiers.