Chandigarh, Oct. 2: A suspected infiltrator from across the Pakistan border today set the cat among the pigeons in Punjab. Except that the cat was a pigeon too.

It landed at the Border Security Force's Simbal post in the Bamial sector, carrying a note in Urdu for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Modiji, don't consider us the same people as we were during 1971. Now each and every child is ready to fight India," it said, according to police sources.

The grey pigeon was promptly "taken into custody" by the Narot Jaimal police station in Pathankot, the theatre of a futile search for four armed men last week after local people reported suspicious movement.

It escaped further molestation, though: a white pigeon caught at Mukerian, a border area about 35km from Pathankot, on Thursday had had to undergo an X-ray.

That bird had appeared to have Urdu words scribbled on its tail - the police could not decipher them - but carried no written message.

"The X-ray was done to see if anything was hidden inside its body but nothing suspicious was found," said a police officer in Mukerian, where the white pigeon is being held.

Today's intrusion was the third in three days across Punjab's frontier, on alert following the Uri terror attack and India's retaliatory "surgical strikes" across the Line of Control.

On Friday night, a resident of Ghesal village in Gursdapur's Dinanagar area, site of a July 2015 terror attack, had found two balloons with an attached message addressed to Modi in Urdu.

"Modiji, the Ayyubi swords are with us now," the note said, possibly referring to the fabled sword of Salauddin al Ayyubi, legendary Crusader and first sultan of Egypt and Syria.

"The messages may have been sent from across the border, or they may be the handiwork of mischief makers keen to create trouble ahead of the Assembly polls," said a police officer in Pathankot, where terrorists had attacked an air force station in January.

"We are investigating the matter. The villagers have also been alerted."

Pak boat

The coastguard seized a Pakistani boat with a crew of nine off the Gujarat coast this morning, a PTI report said.

The crew seemed to be Pakistani fishermen, a defence ministry release said. "The boat and the crew members are being escorted to Porbandar for further investigation," it added.