Did a Chinese ‘spy’ balloon snoop on India too?

New Delhi: While the world is hooked on to the Chinese ‘spy’ balloon that was shot down finally on Saturday, India too has had a brush with this Chinese ‘meteorological, civilian’ balloon, according to reports from January 2022. Though the Chinese government insists that it was purely civilian in nature and that the overflight over the US and Canada was unintentional, reports said there is another similar balloon currently flying over Latin America, from Colombia and Costa Rica. Ostensibly, these ‘spy balloons’ are connected to the Chinese military and the have already been sighted over several nations during the past few years, including East Asia, South Asia, and Europe. According to reports from January 2022, a balloon that looked almost the same was spotted hovering high over an important naval facility in India. In June 2000, there was yet another one over Japan. In February 2022, USAF F-22 Raptors were sent to intercept a balloon off the coast of Hawaii. This incident and others like it might be connected. However, there are no internet photographs of the balloon to support the Chinese design. One of the balloons was captured on camera flying over Port Blair in January 2022, reports claim. The Andaman & Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean are home to a strategically placed Indian Navy facility. At the time, the item was shared on social media, however, remained at the level of conjecture owing to absence from any confirmation by Indian authorities. On January 6, 2022, Andaman Sheekha, a local newspaper, covered the story and posed the following queries: “Now the question is which agency has placed the object in the sky and why? If this object is not released by any agencies in Andaman then was it sent for spying? But in this age of ultra-advanced satellites, who will use a flying object to spy?” Meanwhile, while it took long, but China did take accountability for the spy ballon after the US called it out. Though it claimed that the balloon was a weather balloon that had veered off track over American airspace and expressed remorse that the airship had wandered into American territory due to unavoidable circumstances. The balloon was almost of the size of three buses. It was shot down by a military jet over the Atlantic Ocean using a single AIM-9X supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile. A day before shooting down the balloon, the Pentagon, on Friday, said that it had surveillance capabilities. As per the US defense officials Chinese surveillance balloon first entered US airspace on 28 January and moved largely over land across Alaska before moving into Canadian airspace on 30 January. It re-entered US airspace on 31 January. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.