After being detained for eight months, a pigeon suspected to be a Chinese spy was cleared by Indian police and was set free into the wild on Tuesday, as reported by news agency Press Trust of India. The pigeon was captured near a port in Mumbai in May with two rings attached to its legs containing what appeared to be Chinese symbols. It was taken into custody over espionage suspicions and later transferred to Mumbai’s Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals. However, it was discovered that the pigeon was actually an open-water racing bird from Taiwan that had escaped and made its way to India. With police permission, the bird was released by the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on Tuesday. Despite attempts to reach out to the Mumbai police for comment, they could not be reached. This is not the first instance of a bird coming under suspicion by Indian authorities. In 2020, police in Indian-controlled Kashmir released a pigeon belonging to a Pakistani fisherman after determining that the bird was not a spy, despite having flown across the heavily militarized border between the two countries. Another incident in 2016 involved a pigeon being taken into custody after being discovered with a note threatening Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
