The Air Chief Marsal BS Dhanoa said today that the Indian Air Force (IAF) “cannot count how many people died” in the strike at Pakistan’s Balakot.
Significantly, this comes a day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Amit Shah mentioned the figure at 250.
“It depends on how many people were there. The Air Force is not in a position to count casualties,” the Air Chief Marshal said today adding that the IAF cannot count the number of people who died due to the air strike carried out by India. He added that it was for the government to mention the figure. He was responding to a question on various reports in international media quoting Pakistani local people, suggesting that there were no casualties.
On February 26, foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale had said that a “very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists” had been killed in a “non-military, pre-emptive strike” at a pre-dawn strike across the Line Of Control. that it was specifically targeted at the Jaish-e-Mohammed camp. He also clarified that the strike had been planned in a way that would “avoid civilian casualties”. He said there was information that the JeM was planning another suicide attack. However, no number has been mentioned officially by the government so far.
The Air Chief Marsal today further added that the AIF was concerned about whether the target had been hit, and “we hit the target”, he said. “Otherwise, why would they [Pakistan] have responded? If we had dropped bombs in the jungle there would be no need to respond,” he said.
He also refused to comment on “ongoing operations”.
