Jailbird no more: 'Chinese spy pigeon' freed by Indian police after months in bird lockup

A pigeon suspected of being a Chinese spy is a jailbird no more, being released by police after eight months behind bars.

Indian news agency, the Press Trust of India, report the bird has now been released into the wild. The pigeon’s ordeal began in May, when it was captured near a port in Mumbai with two rings tied to its legs - with what looked like Chinese writing on them.

Police suspected the bird may have been involved in espionage and took it in, later sending it to Mumbai’s Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals. However, it has since come to light that the pigeon was an open-water racing bird from Taiwan, that had escaped and made its way to India.

With police permission, the bird was transferred to the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose doctors set it free this week.

This is not the first time a bird has come under police suspicion in India. In 2020, police in Indian-controlled Kashmir released a pigeon belonging to a Pakistani fisherman, after an investigation found that the bird - which had flown across the heavily militarised border between the nuclear-armed countries - was not a spy.

In 2016, another pigeon was taken into custody, after it was found with a note that threatened Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.