‘Manjha’ threat lives on; Delhi hospital gets over 700 birds injured by kite thread

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 20 

The oldest bird hospital in Chandni Chowk in New Delhi is currently treating over 700 birds—all of them wounded by the ‘manjha’, or the kite thread.  

The birds are believed to have been injured around Independence Day, a time when there is a significant rise in kite-flying across the country. 

The culprit, experts believe, is the tiny shards of glass used to make the ‘manjha’.

The Delhi Government’s notification in 2017 bans ‘manjha’, allowing only cotton threads that are free of anything sharp, but that prohibition remains only on paper. 

Chakresh Jain, president of Jain Mandir and trustee of Birds Hospital facility, said that some 200 birds of the 850 birds that were brought to the hospital were either already dead or died during treatment. Some 150-odd birds will never be able to fly again. 

“Such cases started coming in from August 12. In the last four days, nearly 850 birds have been brought. We found pieces of glass and ‘manjha’ threads stuck in the wings or wrapped around the neck of these animals. In many cases, the birds are unable to recover,” said Jain.

The birds brought in included doves, parrots, pigeons, eagles and even an owl.