Border youth await Pakistanti pigeons’ arrival

DAOKE - Even as any intruder from the Pakistani side of border has to face the security forces, it is the Pakistani pigeons that bring a big smile in the border villages of Punjab on the Indian side.

The border village Daoke has become a safe place for the pigeons from Pakistan, which lose their way back to home.

Some of the pigeons belong to rare species of trained pigeons and all this offers an opportunity for the local youth here on the Indian side of the border to catch and sell them off at a good price.

Daoke village is located near the India- Pakistan international border and surrounded by barbed wire from three sides.

As most of the village youths have been living here since childhood, most of them have turned fully dependent on this trade for their livelihood.

The local traders keep their eyes on these pigeons arriving from the Pakistani side on any given day.

They hope that they deviate from their path and come into their captivity.

When a Pakistan pigeon comes near the village and see other pigeons on the ground, they land there and get trapped.

A Pakistani pigeon fetches thousands of rupees and the price goes up if it has the Pakistan traders’ stamp on its feathers.

Sources say that the favorable time for holding pigeon flying contests in Pakistan is April, May, August, and September.

” It is not that only Pakistani pigeons lose their way, many times our pigeons too land in the villages in Pakistan”, said Sucha Singh, a pigeon flyer.

“Here, on the Indo Pak border, the pigeon trade brings a golden opportunity to earn money for the poor and unemployed youth of villages and manage their two square meal,”said Pargat Singh, another pigeon flyer of this village. By Ravinder Singh Robin(ANI)