INDIAN police said they have detained a pigeon suspected of being a Pakistani spy after it was found to have a message stamped on its body.

    Punjab police said a 14-year-old boy in Manwal, a village close to the Pakistani border, brought the pigeon to a police station when he noticed it bore a stamped message on its wing feathers written in Urdu, the official language of Pakistan, and a Pakistani phone number.

    The pigeon’s feathers also reportedly bore the seal of a Pakistani district in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

    Officers at the Bamiyal police post dubbed the bird a “suspected spy” in a diary report.

    Police Superintendent Rakesh Kaushal said police conducted an X-ray of the white pigeon.

    “Nothing adverse has been found, but we have kept the bird in our custody,” Kaushal told The Times of India. “This is a rare instance of a bird from Pakistan being spotted here. We have caught a few spies here. The area is sensitive, given its proximity to Jammu, where infiltration is quite common.”

    (SD-Agencies)