Three booked for flying kite day after boy’s death

However, they were let off with a warning after being booked under Section 71 (XIV) of City police Act. Police sources said the thread in their possession was not the same as the one that killed the boy, Abhinayu. They added that the spot where the suspects held kite flying competition was far from Meenambal flyover where Abhinayu died.

Meanwhile, in an overnight crackdown on those selling manja thread and kites, police seized 15 kites from a shop run by one Charles in Kasimedu.

Police said they had searched shops selling kites ahead of Deepavali, and Loganathan of Tondiarpet was secured in possession of 90 kites, and claimed that the sale of the thread and kites has drastically reduced after the ban. However, many were buying manja online, which could not be curbed.

Meanwhile, Abhinayu’s body was handed over to his parents, Gopal Kumar and Sumitha, after post-mortem examination at Government Stanley Medical College Hospital. The CCTV footage of the incident that came out on Monday showed Abhinayu sitting in between his parents while they were coming down the Meenambal flyover while returning home from a relative’s house in Anna Nagar. In the footage, Gopal Kumar is seen applying sudden brake to stop the two-wheeler after the manja slit Abhinayu’s neck and passers-by rushing to his rescue.

Senior police officers visited the spot on Monday morning and formed 15 special teams to check the sale of manja. Additional Commissioner (Chennai North) R Dhinakaran said that severe action would be initiated against those flying kites and selling manja, and added that they would be detained under the Goondas Act. 

Meanwhile, RK Nagar police have seized 1,300 kites, 25 spools, three winding machines, three gunny bags of crushed glass pieces used to make manja from a house at VOC Nagar in Old Athipattu in the jurisdiction of Minjur police station on Monday. Based on a tip-off, police raided the house, but the tenant, who is said to be a person from North India, managed to flee. A hunt has been launched for him and the house owner is also being questioned. The seized items were handed over to Minjur police for further investigation.