8 held, 12k Chinese manjha rolls seized in Delhi

New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Friday arrested eight people during search operations in northwest and south Delhi areas, and recovered 11,855 rolls of banned glass-coated kite strings (also known as Chinese manjha) from their possession, said officials

New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Friday arrested eight people during search operations in northwest and south Delhi areas, and recovered 11,855 rolls of banned glass-coated kite strings (also known as Chinese manjha) from their possession, said officials.

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The crackdown came after a 30-year-old man died of severe bleeding after a glass-coated kite string slit his throat while he was riding a motorcycle on Haiderpur Flyover on Monday.

Of the total recovery, 11,760 rolls of glass-coated kite string packed inside 205 cartons were recovered from a godown in Mahendra Park’s Ramgarh on Thursday. The special staff of northwest district arrested the 43-year-old owner of the godown, Amarjeet (goes by first name), for allegedly storing the banned glass-coated kite string, to be sold to retailers across the National Capital Region (NCR), said deputy commissioner of police (northwest) Usha Rangnani.

After receiving a tip-off about a godown of glass-coated kite strings in Ramgarh, and a constable — posing as a decoy customer — visited the godown around 8pm on Thursday and “finalised a deal with Amarjeet through a passcode”. During the delivery process of glass-coated kite string cartons, a police team raided the godown and arrested Amarjeet from there. A total of 205 cartons containing 11,760 rolls were seized, said DCP Rangnani.

“Amarjeet revealed during interrogation that he purchased nearly 400 glass-coated kite string cartons under the brand name of ‘Mono Kite Manjha’ from a supplier in Noida one month ago. The supplier had been getting the majha from Gujarat’s Surat in trucks. Amarjeet used to purchase one glass-coated kite string roll for around ₹250 and sold it for ₹600. A further investigation is underway, and we are trying to nab the supplier at the earliest,” said a senior police officer, requesting anonymity.

During similar search operations, police arrested seven people including two women from across south Delhi for allegedly selling glass-coated kite strings, and recovered 95 such rolls from their possession.

The Delhi government banned glass-coated kite strings in 2016, and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned kite strings made of synthetic material in 2017.

Man receives 18 stitches after kite string slits his neck

Meanwhile, a 29-year-old man, who works as an accountant at a private construction company in outer Delhi’s Paschim Vihar, received 18 stitches after a kite string, likely to be glass-coated, slit his neck while he was riding a motorcycle around 7pm near Vikaspuri flyover on July 26.

Police were informed about the incident late Friday evening, said officials, adding that the injured man, Manoj Kumar, a resident of southwest Delhi’s Palam, said he was returning home from office, when he suddenly spotted a kite string dangling. “I immediately applied the brakes, but the string slit my neck by the time the motorcycle came to a stop. I stopped a biker on the road, borrowed a handkerchief from him and tied it around my neck to stop the bleeding. He then took me to a nearby hospital, where I underwent a surgery and received 18 stitches around my neck,” said Kumar, adding that he suspects that the accident happened due to a glass-coated kite string.

The July 25 tragedy

On July 25, Sumit Ranga, who was a 30-year-old hardware shop owner, allegedly died of severe bleeding after a kite string, likely to be glass-coated, slit his throat while he was riding a motorcycle on Haiderpur Flyover in northwest Delhi. Following this, police launched a crackdown on sale and storage of banned glass-coated kite strings in the Capital.

On Wednesday, the northwest district police arrested three men, and recovered 155 rolls of the banned glass-coated kite string from their possession, said officials.

The Delhi Police have also been taking several measures such as asking students to take an oath to not use glass-coated kite strings, speaking to associations to discourage people to use the banned thread, surprise checks in markets, and keeping a vigil on empty stretches to ensure that people do not use the “killer strings” in the Capital, said officials.