Mysterious Coded Ring on Pigeon Found in Mayurbhanj Village – Police Start Investigation

It was an ordinary Tuesday afternoon in Kashipada, a quiet hamlet under Betanati block, when something unusual caught the eye of Harish Chandra Puhan and his family. A plain‑looking pigeon, fluttering about their courtyard, had a tiny blue‑tinted, brass‑like ring snugly fastened to one of its legs.

The ring wasn’t just any piece of jewelry – it bore the faint inscription “BAN‑2024” and a sequence of numbers, “701831”. At first glance, the characters seemed cryptic, but the prefix “BAN” immediately set off a few mental alarms. Could it be a reference to Bangladesh?

Word spread fast. Within minutes a small crowd gathered, murmuring and pointing, each wondering what the code meant. Harish’s son, Srikash Puhan, decided to take matters into his own hands. He scooped up the bird gently, escorted it to the nearest police outpost at Baisinga, and reported the find to the officials on duty.

At the station, SDPO Minati Biswal of Betnoti and officer Babashankar Saraf examined the ring closely. While they could confirm the metal’s composition and the clear “BAN‑2024” tag, the significance of the six‑digit number “701831” remained a mystery. No immediate link to any known bird‑tagging program in the region could be established.

Investigators are now treating the incident as a preliminary clue rather than a finished story. The working hypothesis is that the pigeon might have been released or tagged in Bangladesh sometime in 2024, perhaps as part of a research or pigeon‑racing activity. Yet, without a definitive registry or owner’s record, the police can only follow the trail of paperwork and perhaps reach out to agencies across the border.

The discovery has stirred a mix of curiosity and slight unease among the villagers. Some wonder if the bird could be carrying messages, while others simply marvel at the oddity of a coded ring on an otherwise ordinary bird. For now, all eyes are on the police report that will hopefully shed light on where the pigeon came from, why it was marked, and what, if anything, the numbers truly signify.