Countering charges levied by opposition leaders over the credibility of the strikes and the casualties inflicted to terrorists, the former Chief of Army Staff tweeted - Do you count things? Bombs were exploded, buildings were hit & will people not be killed after an explosion of a 1000 kg bomb? If killed, then you make an estimate of number of people killed. I don't know who wants to count it. It's unfortunate.
Giving a reference to the Balakot airstrike, Singh drew a comparison of the terrorists with mosquitoes and tweeted, "raat 3:30 baje machchar bahut the, to maine HIT mara. Ab machchar kitne mare ye ginne baithu ya aaram se so jau? (There were lot of mosquitoes at 3:30 am, I used HIT. Now should I count the number of mosquitoes dead or should I sleep comfortably?) Yesterday, Singh had backed Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah for the number of casualties in the airstrike on Balakot.
On being asked about the casualty figure in IAF air strikes, Singh said, "The figure is of the attack on Balakot (250 casualty), attack was only at one place, nowhere else. The target was selected carefully, away from residential areas to avoid civilian casualty."
Senior Congress leader, Digvijaya Singh, questioned the Indian airstrike and demanded proof. He tweeted, "Prime minister ji, some of your ministers say 300 terrorists were killed, BJP chief says 250 were killed, Yogi Adityanath says 400 killed, and your minister SS Alhuwalia says not even one died. And you are silent on this topic. The country wants to know who is the liar here. [sic]"