A pigeon was arrested in India: He was accused of espionage, but was released after 8 months.

The bird was suspected of working for Chinese intelligence. We're not kidding.

An unusual detective story unfolded in Mumbai. Security guards at the local international port spotted a pigeon wandering around the area alone. Employees saw strange rings on the bird’s paws, which aroused their suspicions. They contacted the police.

The arriving detachment, led by assistant inspector Ravindar Patil, locked the bird in one of the premises of the port. He was then taken to a local veterinary clinic. The suspicions of law enforcement officers were strengthened by inscriptions in Chinese, which were painted with some kind of paint on the wings of the bird. And one of the rings contained a microchip with location data.

Detective Patil conducted an investigation and found out that this is a so-called racing pigeon - these participate in special races: the birds are taken a certain distance, and then released, and they must get to their nursery as quickly as possible.

The suspect turned out to be not just an ordinary “athlete”, but a real marathon runner who arrived all the way from Taiwan. This explained the inscriptions in Chinese, which could not be translated.

However, a survey of port employees showed that shortly before the bird appeared in Mumbai, ships arrived from Taiwan. It is likely that the pigeon simply sailed on one of them.

It is worth noting that the investigation itself did not take much time. However, the pigeon was locked up for eight months. How did it happen? The police forgot about the bird. The employees of the clinic, where the pigeon remained all this time, wrote letters, not daring to release the bird themselves, since it was a matter of state security.

It was possible to move the matter forward after the intervention of the animal rights society PETA India. Its participants also began to write to the police, and also created a fuss in the media. And it worked. The police sent an answer: “Let me out.”

The Animal Rights Society admitted that this was the first time they had encountered such a case.

PETA India handles 1,000 calls per week regarding animal emergencies. But this was the first time we were involved in the release of a suspected spy.

Mit Ashar Head of the Anti-Animal Cruelty Unit

It is curious that history still knows examples of the use of birds by intelligence services. And this is not the first such scandal in India itself. In 2014, Kashmir authorities also detained a pigeon suspected of spying. But this happened in a zone of tense relations between India and Pakistan.