Tribune Fact Check: After spy pigeon, Pakistan sends locust army to India?

The Express Tribune analysed the bizarre claim, found it to be false

Indian media has claimed that Pakistan is behind the locust attack that has swept the country.

The Express Tribune analysed the claim and deemed it to be false.

Arnab Goswami, an anchor at Indian news channel Republic TV, made the bizarre allegation on air alleging that the locusts were  sent from across the border as a plot to "destroy the country's agriculture and in-turn the economy".

Indian news anchor, Arnab Goswami, says that #Pakistan has trained LOCUSTS and sent them to attack Indian crops.

😅🤦‍♂️#India pic.twitter.com/B3DfbkAlgf

— DOAM (@doamuslims) May 29, 2020

Goswami went on to claim tthat the locusts would target Pakistan soldiers.

Indian news outlet The Economic Times, also ran a story probing how the possibility.

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The article went as far as to warn New Delhi not to let its "guard down just yet" citing declassified CIA files of its Cold War in which animals were used to photograph sensitive sites in the former USSR.

"As CIA also trained ravens and dolphins, Pakistani locusts should merit closer examination too," the report states.



 

The short-horned grasshoppers invaded agriculture fields in both Pakistan and India decimating crops and risking famine in the region.

The locusts entered into the southwestern Balochistan province, from neighboring Iran.

These insects, mainly originating from deserts, eat anything from bark to seeds and flowers while traveling up to a speed of 93.2 miles (149 kilometers) a day.


After destroying crops in western Indian states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra, the locusts' swarms are heading towards national capital Delhi in large numbers.

Indian police also released a pigeon belonging to a Pakistani fisherman after a probe found that the bird, which had flown across the contentious border between the nuclear-armed nations, was not a spy.

PHOTO: ANIT

“The pigeon was set free yesterday (May 28) after nothing suspicious was found,” said Shailendra Mishra, a senior police official in Indian occupied Kashmir.


It was unclear where the bird was released and whether it flew back to its owner.

The Pakistani owner of the pigeon had urged India to return his bird, which Indian villagers turned over to police after discovering it.