According to a report in a leading Indian newspaper, the nabbed pigeon had markings in Urdu and had a seal and was found in a border village of Pathankot on May 28.
The bird was taken to a veterinary hospital for procedures but had no evidence to link it with the neighbouring country.
It was said that the bird was flying over the boundary area when the Indian Army was in a meeting with the Punjab Police.
The bird landed at the mud and brick house of barber Ramesh Chandra in Manwal village, some four kilometres from the Pakistan border. He took the bird to a nearby police post, where the policemen took it to a veterinary hospital in Pathankot for an X-ray. “Nothing adverse has been found, but we have kept the bird in our custody,” said Pathankot senior superintendent of police Rakesh Kaushal.Policemen posted at the Bamiyal police post made a diary entry calling the bird a “suspected spy”, and sent a communication to India’s Border Security Force and the Intelligence Bureau.
Trending on Twitter
Meanwhile, the hype associated with the story was such that within an hour of so of it being published by arynews.tv and a couple of other websites both ‘spy’ and ‘pigeon’ were trending in Pakistan.
A screengrab of the Trendsmap website showing the terms trending in Pakistan at around 2 pm on May 29
