The Rafale RCS is better without Pylon
Aircraft are known to drop all their payload if they end up in a risky situation. It has more to do with getting to supersonic speed at low altitude during egress.
This is one of the advantages of the F-35 over 4th gen designs, which I had pointed out before in our discussions, the ability to return home with its internal payload.
Stealth will be an added bonus.
Anyway... This is the MICA missile launcher that they found on the ground.
This is the Meteor launcher on a Rafale. You can see the sawtooth edges.
So the platform could be either, since we don't see any Meteors around. Which also means the aircraft was using a strike profile with a strike-specific loadout with no Meteor. So it was challenged, it dropped its payload and either escaped, was shot down, or crashed.
There's also something burning in the background, very close to the missile.
The site is 75 km from the border, near a village north of Bathinda. You can tell by the clothes people are wearing that it's India.