Anyone Caught Spying, Is Always Going To Be In Hot Water,

especially at the border of India and Pakistan,

which is why this 'spy pigeon' has been arrested, photographs ANI, last week authorities in India announced the capture of a suspicious pigeon believed to be a spy from neighboring Pakistan. Now the bird’s owner is demanding that his bird be set free, the alleged spy was captured on Sunday by villagers in the disputed region of Kashmir, between India and Pakistan. The pigeon caught the people’s attention right away, because of its unusual pink color and a ring with a strange code around one of its legs. They immediately called the regional police, who detained the bird on charges of spying while they tried to decipher the code on its ring. Now a Pakistani villager has come out to dispute the charges, saying that the pigeon was his and the ring around its leg isn’t an elaborate code, but his phone number, in case something happened to the bird,

after India’s Border Security Force announced the capture of “another Pakistani spy pigeon”, Pakistani newspaper Dawn managed to track down the bird’s alleged owner, a man named Habib Ullah from the village of Bagga-Shakargarh, just 4 kilometres from the border with the disputed Kashmir region. To celebrate Eid, he painted the wings of some of his birds and released them as symbols of peace, love and tolerance. He never imagined that one of them would fly into India and be labeled a spy, meanwhile, Habib Ullah claims that the ring only bears his phone number, and is urging Indian prime-minister Narendra Modi to return the pigeon with “full protocol and due respect”,

photograph E-News Pakistan, He and others in Bagga-Shakargarh have been protesting the pigeon’s arrest over the last few days, showing off his collection of pink-painted pigeons as proof that there was nothing special about the captured one, well at least the 'Spy' is still alive!

 spare a thought to what happen to a spy washed ashore in Hartlepool, in the UK at the tine of the Napoleonic wars, legend has it that during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, a shipwrecked monkey was hanged by the people of Hartlepool, believing him to be a French spy! To this day, people from Hartlepool are affectionately known as ‘monkey hangers’, a French ship was spotted floundering and sinking off the Hartlepool coast. Suspicious of enemy ships and nervous of possible invasion, the good folk of Hartlepool rushed down to the beach, where amongst the wreckage of the ship they found the only survivor, the ship’s monkey which was apparently dressed in a miniature military-style uniform, Hartlepool is a long way from France and most of the populace had never met, or even seen, a Frenchman. Some satirical cartoons of the time pictured the French as monkey-like creatures with tails and claws, so perhaps the locals could be forgiven for deciding that the monkey, in its uniform, must be a Frenchman, and a French spy at that. There was a trial to ascertain whether the monkey was guilty of spying or not; however, not unsurprisingly, the monkey was unable to answer any of the court’s questions and was found guilty. The townsfolk then dragged him into the town square and hanged him, so I guess it was good luck that the pigeon did not fly over Hartlepool!

lucky the people of the area take the story with a pinch of salt as can be seen from the above, Rugby union club Hartlepool Rovers features the monkey on its badge, I hope the people of the area can forgive me!