AAP linked to ‘manja mafia’, alleges Vijender Gupta

The leader of Oppositi-on in the Delhi Assem-bly, Vijender Gupta, has on Wednesday blamed the Delhi government for not banning the deadly Chinese manja with affect from August 15 which has led to the death of three persons in the national capital. Mr Gupta said that the BJP will raise this matter in the Assembly session beginning August 22.

Alleging that the Delhi government was a killer that did not care for the life and property of the people, Mr Gupta demanded constitution of an impartial judicial commission to investigate the reason for not banning the manja which lead to the deaths and injuries. so that strict action could be taken against those found guilty.

According to Mr Gupta, on August 15 last year a person lost his life after getting injured due to the metal-coated string while trying to fly a kite. The BJP had then demanded the Delhi government to strictly ban the sale of Chinese manja, but the Kejriwal government took no action. In May 2016 a petition was filed in the Delhi high court to ban manja. On August 2, the Delhi government told the high court that Chinese manja cannot be banned because a notification will have to be issued for six months, even as the petitioner told the matter concerned the life and property of the people and therefore sale of manja will have to be banned immediately.

“Thereafter, the file relating to the draft for issue of notification was sent to the lieutenant governor on August 8, 2016. Considering the seriousness of the issue, the L-G signed the file on August 9 and returned it to the Delhi government. A special Assembly session could have been called on August 10 and 11 to pass the bill to permanently ban Chinese manja and send it to the L-G to make it a law, but because the government was in collusion with the manja mafia, it took no action on it. This has led to the deaths of innocent people,” he said.