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20-year-old woman on a scooter dies after kite string slits her throat
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the death of the young woman was extremely distressing and ordered district officials to enforce the ban on glass-laced kite string.
BHOPAL: A 20-year-old woman riding a scooter in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain died when a razar-sharp kite string slit her throat on Saturday, police said.
The woman was identified by the police as Neha Anjana, a college student from Ujjain district’s Mahidpur town, 250km west of state capital Bhopal.
“The woman was going on a scooter with her cousin sister from Indira Nagar to Freeganj when the string got entangled in her neck and slit her throat. She fell down and was bleeding profusely. Her cousin sister cried for help but for a few minutes, nobody came forward to help her,” said Manish Lodha, in charge of Madhavnagar police station.
Later, an advocate, Ravindra Singh Sengar, saw them and came to help. Sengar took the woman to a private hospital in his car but the doctor declared her brought dead.
Manish Lodha said they are trying to trace the person who was using the string, and the seller of the banned variety of kite string.
The use of kite string laced with glass or metal, locally called Chinese manjha, has been banned by National Green Tribunal (NGT) since 2016 as it poses a threat to the life of humans, animals, and birds. The NGT order issued on a petition by animal rights body People for Ethical Treatment of Animals came months after multiple deaths were reported across the country due to the killer kite strings.
Among them were two Delhi children, aged four and six, who died in separate incidents during the 2016 Independence Day celebrations when they were looking out of the sunroof of their cars.
But the NGT order, reinforced by some governments with separate state-specific ban orders, has not been enforced and there are reports every year of people dying or getting injured from the kite strings laced with powdered glass or metal to sharpen them.
After Neha Anjana’s death in Madhya Pradesh, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said he will tell district authorities to enforce the ban.
Chouhan said the news of the death of 20-year-old was extremely distressing.
“I am giving strict instructions to all the district administrations of the state to take necessary action to stop the sale of this dangerous manjha,” said the chief minister.
