A pigeon suspected of Chinese espionage was freed this week after being held in an Indian animal hospital for eight months.
The bird, released from the Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals in Mumbai, was captured in May by officers at the Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Police Station, according to Indian news agency Press Trust of India.
The bird had rings tied to its legs that included apparent Chinese writing, police said.
“The pigeon was caught in May last year at Pir Pau Jetty in suburban Chembur by the RCF police. The bird had two rings — one of copper and another of aluminium — tied to its leg and messages written in a Chinese-like script on the underside of both its wings,” police told the news agency.
Further investigation found that there was another explanation for the Chinese characters on the bird’s wings.
The bird hailed from Taiwan and had been used for open-water racing before its escape, according to the Associated Press.
“It may have been weak and injured, and boarded the ship and off-boarded here,” police sub-inspector Ravinder Patil told The New York Times. He added that the characters written on the bird were not legible by the time it was captured.
Although the bird’s innocence was quickly established, it remained in captivity. The hospital and PETA India say the police forgot about the pigeon, leading to a campaign to spring the bird.
” ‘PETA India handles 1,000 calls a week of animal emergencies, but this was our first case of a suspected spy who needed to be freed,” Meet Ashar, head of PETA India’s cruelty response team, told The New York Times.
Mr. Patil said the hospital misconstrued police instructions to free the pigeon once it was healthy.
Once the bird was cleared, the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals took custody and freed the pigeon Tuesday.