Chinese manja kills 5-year-old in Hyd

Banned Chinese manja claimed another life in Telangana, with a five-year-old girl becoming the latest victim in Hyderabad on Monday.

The incident occurred in the Kukatpally area in Telangana when the girl was riding a motorcycle with her father and sister.

According to police, the manja of a flying kite got entangled around her neck and caused a deep cut. Nishvika Aditya (5) died on the spot due to profuse bleeding.

She was sitting in front of her father, who was driving the bike while her sister was riding pillion. They were coming to Kukatpally from Khajipalli in Medchal-Malkajgiri district.

Police registered a case and took up the investigation.

This is the second such incident in Telangana in less than two weeks.

A 35-year-old man in Sangareddy district lost his life in a similar incident on January 14. Avidesh, a migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh, was riding a motorcycle when the manja got entangled around his neck. He suffered a deep cut and died on the spot.

More than a dozen people were injured by Chinese manja in Hyderabad and its outskirts this month.

The injured included an Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) and a 70-year-old woman.

In 2024, a Naik-rank officer of the Indian Army died after his throat was slit by a Chinese manja in Hyderabad.

Kagithala Koteswar Reddy (30), a native of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, succumbed at a hospital. The incident took place when he was riding a scooter on the Indra Reddy flyover in the Langar Houz area.

Despite the ban, Chinese manja was used rampantly for flying kites during the recent Sankranti festival season.

Hyderabad Police had launched a special drive against Chinese manja (synthetic/nylon kite string) to curb its sale, storage, and transportation in the city.

From January 8 to January 11, the police seized 2,150 bobbins of Chinese manja worth Rs 43 lakh.

The police registered 29 cases against those involved in the sale and arrested 57 people.

During the last one month, police registered 132 cases and seized 8,376 bobbins worth Rs 1.68 crore. A total of 200 people were arrested.