Why Rajasthan police kept a pigeon in AC room, fed it organic bajra and mineral water

A pigeon, which probably flew in from across the border, was kept in an air conditioned room, given organic bajra and jowar to eat and mineral water to drink at a police station in Rajasthan’s border district of Sriganganagar for two days.

Residents of Karanpur village caught the bird on September 14 and alerted the Border Security Force (BSF) on seeing a stamp on its wings. After initial inquiry, the BSF handed it over to police until it was brought to veterinary hospital in Bikaner, 259km south, on Tuesday.

Head constable Mahendra Ram of Karanpur police station, who took custody of the pigeon from BSF, said: “It was necessary to keep the bird safe for further probe in the matter. We guarded it very carefully in an AC room, and arranged hygienic food and mineral water for it.”

A local said police arranged for organic millet (bajra) and jowar (sorghum) for the bird to eat.

Border villages of Rajasthan and security agencies are accustomed to seeing birds, including pigeons and eagles, flying in from over the border and have trapped a few over the years, suspecting they were being used for spying, police added.

Sukhdevsingh Bawri, who caught the bird, said: “We found it stamped with some text in Urdu language and a 10 digit number. I informed the Border Security Force (BSF) officials and they handed it over to the Karanpur police after preliminary inquiry.”

Police said the bird was handed over to veterinary experts in Bikaner, where a detailed scan and examination was conducted at a veterinary hospital. The inspection was done to check if it possessed any objectionable spying instrument inside its body or wings. This was done as a precautionary measure, said a police officer privy to the developments around the bird’s capture.

First Published: Sep 18, 2019 11:47 IST