As India prepares for 75th Independence Day, scooter riders and police brace for more lethal glass-covered kite strings

Some victims garrotted by ‘invisible’ sharp kite strings although delivery driver recently fell in road, entangled; his skull was then crushed by a car

Illegal glass or metal-covered strings – Chinese manja – help bring down rivals’ kites; this year kites are banned near to where Prime Minister Modi will make Independence Day anniversary speech

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A participant flies a kite at a kite festival in India. File photo: AP

Published: 7:26pm, 12 Aug 2022Updated: 7:30pm, 12 Aug 2022

How Narendra Kumar, a young father of three, ended up dead on a New Delhi road, his skull crushed, is the sad and horrible tale of a deadly piece of ‘invisible’ string.

Kumar was on a late shift on August 7, delivering food on his scooter. Police say a kite string, coated in powdered glass, was hanging in the air and he failed to see it in the dark. It is thought that the more he tried to free himself from the razor-sharp cord, the more entangled he became. Eventually he fell onto the road, and a car ran over him.

Kumar’s death is not the first kite-string related one in India, which will celebrate its 75th anniversary of independence from Britain on August 15. A traditional and popular activity on the bank holiday is kite flying, particularly in the Muslim quarter known as Old Delhi.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) and Indonesian President Joko Widodo (L) flying kites during the 2018 India-Indonesia Kite Exhibition. Photo: EPA-EFE

As always at this time of year, kite sellers are doing a particularly brisk trade. But the capital’s police are also busy, frantically trying to prevent scooter riders from being garrotted – as some have been, in New Delhi and elsewhere – by kite strings illegally covered in tiny fragments of glass or metal.

The strings are called ‘manja’ across South Asia but in parts of India are mysteriously referred to as ‘Chinese manja’, the reason for the name unclear.

Made all over India in small workshops, the glass-coated kite strings were designed to help fliers bring down competitors’ kites during kite fighting duels, ‘attacking’ a rival’s kite to help make it drift to the ground. However, such strings can inadvertently end up injuring or killing people, animals and birds.

Serious kite fliers tie bandages on their hands to protect themselves but the sport has had numerous victims in recent years. Unsuspecting residents have had their throats cut and bled to death after coming into contact with invisible stray strings hanging in the air. Victims have mainly been scooter drivers, with some children riding pillion also killed.