Pak registers FIR against "unidentified" IAF pilots for bombing 19 trees in Balakot: Report

Pakistan on Friday registered a First Information Report against "unidentified pilots" of the Indian Air Force (IAF) for bombing and destroying 19 trees in the Balakot area, according to a media report, days after India's preemptive strike against the Jaish-e-Mohammed's largest terrorist training camp in the country.

The FIR was filed by the forestry department on Friday against pilots of the IAF for bombing and destroying trees in the Balakot area, the Express News reported.

The FIR, registered against "unidentified IAF pilots", also details the damage suffered by 19 trees after the Indian fighter jets "hastily dropped their payload", it says.

On March 26, India said IAF jets, in the face of imminent danger, launched a preemptive strike on Balakot in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

"In an intelligence led operation in the early hours of today, India struck the biggest training camp of JeM in Balakot. In this operation, a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated," Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said in a statement in New Delhi.

He said the JeM facility at Balakot was headed by Maulana Yousuf Azhar, the brother-in-law of Masood Azhar, the Chief of JeM.

The Pakistani military has has said the IAF jets released their payload which "had free fall in open area."