Mumbai: Suspected Chinese spy pigeon freed after 8 months

Mumbai: A Mumbai-based animal hospital released a pigeon suspected to be used by the Chinese for spying after it was kept in custody for nearly eight months, a police official said on Wednesday.

The pigeon was released after Mumbai police granted permission to The Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals in Parel, which was taking care of him after it was caught in May last year at Pir Pau Jetty in suburban Chembur by the RCF police.

The bird had two rings—one of copper and another of aluminium—tied to its leg and messages written in a Chinese-like script on the underside of both its wings, the police said.

Suspecting the language to be Chinese, police handed it over to the hospital to run a medical test on the bird, while they sent the two rings on its leg for a forensic examination to rule out the possibility of it spying in Indian territory.

The RCF police then registered a case, but after the inquiry was completed, the spying charge was dropped, and the pigeon was freed, he said.

During the probe into the case, the police found the pigeon used to take part in racing in the open waters in Taiwan, and at one such event, it flew out of the country and landed in India, the official said.