New Delhi: As opposition voices questioning the claim of government on air strike in Pakistan’s Balakot are growing stronger, Congress leader and Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu also took a jibe by asking was the government “uprooting trees or terrorists”. Stating that the Army is “as sacred as the state”, he said that its politicization should not be done.


Sidhu took to his Twitter handle to ask whether or not 300 terrorists have been killed in the IAF strike on Jaish-e-Mohammed camp in Pakistan. He questioned was it (the air strike) an “election gimmick”.

“300 terrorist dead, Yes or No? What was the purpose then? Were you uprooting terrorist or trees? Was it an election gimmick?” Sidhu tweeted.

“Deceit possesses our land in guise of fighting a foreign enemy. Stop politicising the army, it is as sacred as the state,” he wrote on Twitter.

In an earlier tweet, he wrote: “Skimmed milk masquerades as cream, things are seldom as they seem”.

Earlier in the day Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari took a dig at Shah saying, “AVM RGK Kapoor said "it would be premature to say that what is the number of casualties that we have been able to inflict on those camps and what is the number of deaths," BUT Amit Shah says over 250 Terrorists killed in airstrike. Is this not milking Air Strikes for Politics????”

On Sunday, Bharatiya Janta Party Chief Amit Shah claimed that more than 250 terrorists were killed in air strikes executed by Indian Air Force on Jaish-e-Mohammad camp in Balakot on February 26.

India launched an anti-terror operation by striking a JeM camp in Pakistan’s Balakot, in response to Pakistan’s inaction on terrorists after the ghastly Pulwama terror attack on February 14. Pakistan violate Indian air space in response and attempted to target Indian military posts. IAF downed one of Pakistan’s jet, but Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman  was caotured by the Pakistani Army.

Pakistan on Friday released Abhinandan under terms of Geneva convention, which it touted as a “peace gesture.”