In Faridabad village, a dead bird, a GPS tag and cross-border fears

“At that point, he fled the spot with his animals, but was too afraid to tell anyone about what he had found, fearing he would be held responsible for whatever it was,” said Sachin Madotia, the village sarpanch.

It was the next morning, prior to the national anthem being played across the village at 8 am — a practice followed each day — that Sundar finally gathered the courage to tell the sarpanch what he had found.

“He told me that he had seen a dead bird, with something like a phone and antennas attached to its back. I asked him to take me to the spot, and the bird was still there,” said Madotia, who then alerted police.

“We did not want to fiddle with the animal or the device too much, especially given the situation between India and Pakistan right now. We were afraid the device was some kind of a weapon, so we alerted police, who then summoned the wildlife department,” he said.

Confirming this, Faridabad police said that on reaching the spot, the animal was found with an “electrical instrument” attached to its back. The wildlife department was summoned, with sub-inspector of the Wildlife Department, Faridabad, Charan Singh, first alerting them to the possibility that the bird could belong to the WII in Dehradun.

“A team from Dehradun reached Faridabad Wednesday and cross-checked the number on the device, after which they confirmed the bird belonged to them. They have taken it back to Dehradun,” said Sube Singh, PRO of Faridabad police.

An official from WII said, “The bird is a black-eared kite which had been fitted with a GPS tag last year to track its location, to help study its behaviour and movement.”

“We have retrieved the bird and are taking it back to the institute where, depending on its condition, a post-mortem will be conducted and tissue samples analysed to ascertain the cause of death. The bird was found dead in Faridabad over 24 hours ago, so we are not certain if it is in a condition for a post-mortem,” said the official.