Three pigeons traced with suspicious messages and camera from West Bengal and Odisha Jalpaiguri (West Bengal):In mysterious circumstances, three pigeons were traced in the last fortnight – all from Odisha and West Bengal with strange codes, numbers and camera tied to the toes arousing suspicion that these long-flying birds might be used in espionage.
On Tuesday morning some residents of Pradhanpara in Jalpaiguri Sadar Block noticed the pigeon that appeared to be sick, and it was sitting on the top of a grocery shop. The owner of the shop- Dulal Sarkar caught the bird and noticed a ring on its leg with a phone number written on it.
The phone number belonged to someone named MD Akbar from Himachal Pradesh, but he has no connection to the area. The Giriraj species of pigeons were once used as spies, which has led locals to suspect that the bird might be used for information smuggling.
“We have informed the police but we cannot keep the pigeon with us and so we have left it free. The number is from Himachal Pradesh but we don’t know how this bird flew nearly 1500 kilometres and came here. As it is wounded it has not left the place and is flying around in the neighbourhood but we don’t know how long it will continue to stay here,” a local resident Parimal Biswas said.
Police however is apprehensive about the whole incident. Kotwali police station Inspector-in-charge said, “We are keeping a close watch on the movement of the bird. We have informed the higher authorities about it. We cannot say anything more regarding the incident”.
This is not the first time but a week before a pigeon with a suspicious pigeon was found in Puri with paper stickers on their feet. The plain looking grey pigeon had two golden and white coloured stickers attached to its legs. The white coloured tag reads '31'. 'Reddy VSP DN' written in English font on the golden tag. The meaning of both coded messages could not be recovered.
A week before the detection of a pigeon, another winged creature with camera and a chip fitted on its leg was caught by fishermen from a boat named Sarathi off the Paradip coast of Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district on March 8th. Symbolic messages in Urdu and Chinese also written on the skin. The fishermen reported the pigeon to the Marine police station, who then took the bird into their custody. A tag with a foreign language was found fixed on its wings, and it is suspected that the bird was being used for spying purposes.
The police have started an investigation, and the camera, chip, and tag will be sent to the state forensic laboratory to determine if the camera was indeed used for spying and its origin but nothing transpired in this case so far. However, so far nothing has been transpired from the investigation making the things even more complicated.
