Were 300 terrorists killed in the Indian Air Force air strikes in #Balakot?

After the Indian Air Force carried out an operation across the Line of Cross in Balakot, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, a vast section of Indian media went into a tizzy asserting that India had avenged Pulwama.

Many TV news channels reported that India had ‘eliminated’ Maulana Yousuf Azhar, who is the brother-in-law of Masood Azhar, chief of terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed. This claim was made in TV news studios even as there was no official statement and zero evidence to suggest so. Meanwhile, many channels tom-tommed also the fact that the air strikes had killed 200 to 300 terrorists. Some channels even went up to 400.

It appears now that these figures being touted by many news channels may not have had any basis in hard facts.

The Indian Armed forces held a joint press conference today with Army’s Major general Surindar Singh Mehal, Navy’s Rear Admiral Dalbir Singh Gujral and Air Vice Marshal RGK Kapoor from the Indian Air Force addressing the media.

During this presser, Ajit Dubey of ANI asked the exact number of terrorists that had been killed. To this question, the Air Vice Marshal said it was premature to give an exact figure: “There is fairly credible evidence with us which proves that there was damage to the camps…the weapons hit the intended target and they caused the damage that was intended…however, it will be premature to say what is the number of casualties we have been able to inflict on those camps and what is number of deaths…”

This begs the question of where the 300-400 figure came from.

The joint presser also addressed the misinformation campaign mounted by the Pakistani Army. The Air Vice Marshal RGK Kapoor also stated that India had shot down the F-16 Pakistan Air Force jet in the aerial engagement with Pakistan on Wednesday morning.