The three-month-old crackdown against demonstrations in Indian controlled Kashmir seems to be extending to even birds, as Indian forces have seized 153 pigeons suspecting them to be spies.
According to the Times of India, the pigeons were found in the possession of three people in Kashmir on Oct 5.
The three men were booked under Section 144 of the Cruelty to Animals Act and the pigeons were handed over to a non-governmental organisation called Save Animals Value Environment (SAVE).
Indian media suggested that the seized pigeons were found with “some rings in their claws and special magnetic rings attached to them.”
The SAVE chairman wrote to a Jammu deputy commissioner who ordered an enquiry into whether the pigeons were being used in spying activities.
While the bird has since ages been used for communication, India has recently become suspicious of pigeons being used from across the Line of Control Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
This month the Indian Border Security Force claimed that it had caught a pigeon with a note from Pakistan that it would defend against Indian aggression.
A few years ago, Indian police arrested a ‘spy’ pigeon in Amritsar saying it had a ring around its foot and carried a Pakistani phone number and address stamped on its body in red ink.
Such reports have touched off discussions in the Pakistani media, where analysts wonder whether India is acting out of paranoia or precaution.
Meanwhile, Pakistan-India tensions continue to persist in the face of ongoing Indian repression of Kashmiris, where more than 100 people have been killed and several blinded with pellet gun wounds since July outbreak of protests. A militant attack on Indian army base in Uri killed 18 Indian forces further heightening the South Asian tensions.
Both India and Pakistan accuse each other of perpetrating terrorism in the disputed territory.
At a recently held summit meeting of BRICS, a group of Brazil, Russia, India , China and South Africa, in Western Indian city of Goa, New Delhi tried to include Pakistan in the final communique as a country exporting terrorism but failed to do so due to resistance from China.
Reacting to the Indian move, Islamabad has accused New Delhi of misleading BRICS countries in a bid to hide its brutalities in Jammu and Kashmir.
In Washington, the White House has brushed aside the Indian prime minister’s suggestion that Pakistan is the motherland of terrorism, with a White House spokesman saying that the two neighboring countries should peacefully resolve their deeply held differences.
