Suspected pigeon spy released eight months after arrest

A mysterious message with hieroglyphs was found on the bird

A pigeon suspected of spying has been released after eight months in Indian custody. The dove was found in May last year with a message that was said to look like it contained Chinese characters.

Indian police have neutralized a suspected Chinese spy pigeon and released it into the wild after eight months in custody, according to reports from the Press Trust of India.

According to The Guardian, the pigeon’s ordeal began in May when the bird was caught near the port in Mumbai with two rings tied to its legs, with a message said to be similar to Chinese inscriptions, local media reported. The police suspected that the bird was involved in espionage and seized it, later sending it to Mumbai’s Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Animal Hospital.

It was eventually discovered that the pigeon was an open water bird in Taiwan that escaped and made its way to India. With police permission, the bird was handed over to the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose doctors released it on Tuesday.

The Mumbai police could not be reached for comment, The Guardian notes.

This is not the first time that a bird has come under police suspicion in India, the publication recalls.

In 2020, police in Indian-controlled Kashmir released a pigeon belonging to a Pakistani fisherman after an investigation found that the bird, which had flown across the heavily militarized border between nuclear-armed countries, was not a spy.

And in 2016, another pigeon was taken into custody after it was found with a note threatening Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As Sky News tells it, generally speaking, pigeons have been used in espionage and warfare throughout history, including by British troops during the First and Second World Wars to deliver messages.

In particular, a pigeon named Gustav brought the first news of D-Day to Britain after a correspondent wrote a report and attached it to the bird during the Allied landings on Sword Beach in Normandy on June 6, 1944.