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Last year, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) hospital in Parel received nearly 70 calls for bird rescue of which at least 10 died, J C Khanna, secretary of SPCA said. “Mostly we received the calls between January 12 and January 15 and the birds were common pigeons, crows, mynahs, cuckoos and parrots. Nearly 10 of them were so badly injured that they didn’t survive,” he said. According to Prashant Mahajan of BNHS, the number of injured birds reported to hospitals may be just 10 per cent of actual number of cases. “If 68-70 were admitted to the hospital, roughly 600 probably died unattended,” he explained.
Need for rules on manja
Khanna expressed the need for a government directive in the manufacturing of manjas. “These threads are polished with powered glass or lead so that they are strong enough for kite fights and to sustain the wind currents. But the threads are not just lethal for the avian population, in extreme cases they have even hurt people.”
Khanna said that last year he had appealed to the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) to formulate rules on the manufacturing of manja but it wasn’t taken seriously. “This year too I want to raise the issue,” he said. An official at AWBI denied having received any major complaint so far but added, “There is no particular rule on the manufacture or sale of manja but we do urge people to use soft thread to fly kites.” Mumbai’s joint police commissioner KL Prasad said, “While Gujarat has some stringent rules for kite flyers, this city has not enforced any rule yet. But of course, if any person is injured or killed due to the manja, the kite flyer can be arrested under the section for rash and negligent act causing injuries or death to another person.” nitya.kaushik@expressindia.com
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