Pune: 2 arrested for selling banned ‘nylon manjha’ through Instagram

Acting on a tipoff, a team from Mundhwa police station led by sub-inspector Yuvraj Poman laid a trap near the Hadapsar railway station on Wednesday afternoon. When the accused reached the spot, the police personnel posing as customers approached them to buy the nylon manjha. The duo allegedly offered one manjha reel for Rs 800. After confirming that they were selling the banned manjha, the accused were arrested.

Police seized 136 reels of nylon manjha of “Monofil Gold company”, worth Rs 1,08,800, from the two accused. An FIR was lodged against the accused at the Mundhwa police station, under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 223, 3(5) and sections of the Environment Protection Act, stated a press release issued on Thursday.

“We are seeking the custody of both the accused from the court for further investigation into the case. It is being probed from where the accused procured the nylon manjha. The probe so far has revealed that they were trying to find customers for selling the manjha by posting information about it on their Instagram accounts,” said senior police inspector Smita Vasnik of the Mundhwa police station.

Police sub-inspector Poman is investigating the case. Earlier this year in January, the Pune city police had, in two separate cases, arrested four men and a woman, and seized over 60 bundles of nylon manjha from them.

Traditionally, manjha is made by coating glue and fine-powdered glass on cotton threads. But the demand for nylon manjha grew among kite flyers because it is much cheaper, sharper and stronger than traditional kite strings. Police suspect nylon manjha is made locally in different parts of Maharashtra as well as in Rajasthan, Gujarat and some North Indian states.

In July 2017, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had passed an order putting a nationwide ban on kite strings made of nylon or any synthetic material which is non-biodegradable, saying it posed a threat to the lives of birds, animals and humans.

But, in 2018, two women riding two-wheelers died in separate incidents in Pune, the deaths blamed on nylon manjha, also referred as “Chinese manja” or synthetic thread sharpened with powdered glass.

On February 7, 2018, Suvarna Mujumdar (45), an employee of a prominent media group in Pune city, was going from Budhwar Peth to Shivajinagar along with her colleague on their respective two-wheelers, when a floating nylon manja got entangled around her neck. She stopped riding as the kite string caused a deep cut on her neck. She was admitted to a hospital, where she succumbed on February 11.

Again, on October 7, 2018, the banned kite slashed the neck of Dr Krupali Nikam (26) on the flyover at Nashik Phata, when she was going towards Bhosari on a two-wheeler.

Meanwhile, following the death of a woman in Nashik due to nylon manja in 2020, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court took up a suo motu PIL and issued orders to curb the use of this harmful kite string.