Yanis Darras with AFP
Last Tuesday, India released a pigeon suspected of spying for China, after eight months of detention. The bird arrested last May was carrying with him an “illegible message” written in Chinese, thus worrying the Indian authorities. But eventually, the police learned that the bird came… From Taiwan.
The story is unusual. India has released a pigeon which had been imprisoned for eight months on suspicion of espionage, the animal having finally been cleared, we learned Friday from the animal rights organization Peta. The bird was intercepted in May, carrying with it an “illegible message”, and was detained in a veterinary clinic in Bombay (west), before being released on January 30 by the police, this source said. .
According to the Times of India daily, the message was written in Chinese, which alarmed investigators. “The police had opened a procedure for espionage against the bird, but closed the file at the end of their investigation,” states the newspaper. AFP was unable to obtain official confirmation.
Arrest of pigeons, a common affair in India
According to the Indian news agency Press Trust of India, the authorities realized that the bird came from Taiwan and that it posed no threat to internal security. The pigeon, held at the small Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw animal hospital in Mumbai, was therefore transported to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Bombay, before being released last Friday.
Arrests of homing pigeons for espionage are not uncommon in India. In 2016, one of them was imprisoned after being intercepted near the Pakistani border, carrying a threatening message towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi.