India orders tests on potential ‘spy pigeon’ from Pakistan

A suspected Pakistani ‘spy pigeon’ seized just inside India’s border faces X-ray by security officials to ensure the bird is not carrying hidden messages, or spy gadgets.

The bird was handed in to border security forces after landing close to a post near Amritsar, the Times of India reported.

The unnamed bird is the latest in a string of alleged avian agents to be seized over the years amid tense relations and mutual suspicion between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Police Inspector Paramvir Singh said officers would order an X-ray to ensure the the pigeon was not carrying any form of coded message or spy hardware.

The paper reported that the use of pigeons to carry coded messages between drug traffickers and militants was not unusual along the border.

In 2015 another suspect pigeon was caught after being spotted allegedly carrying a "stamped message" on its body.

Local reports said the message was written in Urdu, the official language of Pakistan, and also contained a Pakistani phone number.

That bird was discovered in the village of Manwal, two miles from the border, by a 14-year-old boy. X-rays on that occasion found nothing untoward, but officers at the time confided they had “kept the bird in our custody", and the pigeon had been logged as a "suspected spy" in the area’s official police diary.

A year later Indian press carried more reports of another pigeon being caught, this time with a message addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi tied to its leg.

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Police later said they had clipped the pigeon’s wings to stop it returning to Pakistan. Spy pigeon reports have previously provoked much mirth in Pakistan and India.