CHENNAI: The Vyasarpadi police have arrested three more men from Bengaluru in the case where two persons, including a two-year-old boy, were injured on November 17 after getting entangled in maanja thread, which is used to fly kites.
The day after the incident, the police arrested a group of 10 people, including three minor boys, for allegedly manufacturing and selling kites and maanja thread.
Based on the information provided by the 10 suspects, the police traced three men in Bengaluru where they were running Instagram pages under the names MD Kites, FB Kites, and IMMU Kites and selling kites and the thread.
The arrested men were identified as F Muhammad Fazil (25), A Mansoor Ilahi alias Mansoor (37) and B Irfan (37). The police recovered 5,030 kites, 130 spools, 50 bundles of maanja thread, one spool machine and three mobile phones from them.
The police sources said that the suspects sold the kits and the thread to their customers through their Instagram pages. Maanja thread is an abrasive thread used in kite flying. It is coated with powdered glass, adhesive, and sometimes other materials to make it sharp and abrasive. Flying kites using this thread in Chennai is banned.