Sam Pitroda questions death toll in Balakot air strike

New Delhi, Mar 22: Congress President Rahul Gandhi's confidant Sam Pitroda on Friday questioned death toll in Balakot air strike, batted for dialogue with Pakistan.

Sam Pitroda, Indian Overseas Congress Chief , told ANI, "If you say 300 people were killed, we all need to know that ,all Indians need to know that. Then comes the global media which says nobody was killed, I look bad as an Indian citizen."

Citing International media reports, Pitroda asked credibility of the number of casualties shared by the government.

He asked, "I would like to know more as I have read in New York Times and other newspapers, what did we really attack, we really killed 300 people?"

Early this month, the Congress hit out at Amit Shah for politicising the air strikes by the Indian Air Force (IAF) in Pakistan's Balakot after the BJP chief said that over 250 terrorists were killed in the operation.

Shah, who was addressing an election rally in Gujarat, said after the February 14 Pulwama attack in which over 40 CRPF men were killed, "everyone thought there could be no surgical strikes". "But under (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi's leadership, the government carried out an air strike and killed more than 250 terrorists," the BJP chief said.

Neither the government nor the air force has released any official figure on the casualties after the IAF action.

However, former Army chief and Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh said the death toll is not a "confirmed figure" and that the BJP chief meant that these many "might have died" in the air strike.