Deadly Kites banned in Pakistan!

It only took seven deaths including two kids, a few sliced necks and some common sense...but the deadly kites are finally banned.



This is ridiculious, only an idiot would fly a kite with shars of glass and metal on the string and sharp metal plates on the kite. Apparantly this has been going on for a few years and there have been many deaths over this "tradition".

BBC - 2003
Several people have had their throats cut this year by strings that are either metallic or coated with abrasive materials.

Police throughout the province have now been instructed to treat such deaths as murder cases.

Kite flyers use metallic strings or coat them with glass shards to take part in "dog fights" where the objective is to cut their opponent's string.

This is not like running with the bulls or some other mass act of stupidity where the only people hurt are the people involved. This is innocent people being sliced to death so a few idiots can get thier kicks.

This rates the Darwin Award, imo.

Other sources
news.yahoo.com
Reute rs
MSNBC.com



[edit on 12/3/2006 by SportyMB]

it's very common to have razors and blades tied to kite tails at kite flying festivals. if you're good at kite flying, you can cut others kites, and prove you're the best kite flyer I guess. It's a sports thing and kite flying festivals are popular in many parts of the world not just Pakistan.

btw, this is going to Global News Discussion.

Ofcourse kite flying competitions are popular all over the world. I did not know that people put razors on them though, seems smart, eliminate the competition like you said, ww. But this is beyond an ordinary competition, this is done on a massive scale with dozens of kite flyers rigging kites with chemically treated string with glass stuck to it, sharp metal squares and even wire used as kite string in a poppulated area.

This is not limited to Pakistan.....

Goodle search for deadly kites



[edit on 12/3/2006 by SportyMB]

Never heard of this kind of activity :/

LOL, razar blade kites.....


It is pretty reckless, doing this in public. What about closing areas to the public?

Here's a link to an audio presentation about kite fighting from NPR -- National Public Radio.

Kite Fighting is not just a "sport" in India and Pakistan. Kite fighting is also being practiced in California. I would suspect that kite fighting, in one form or another, has been tried anywhere in the world that it's windy and where kids with time on their hands happen to be.

A little prudence is all that is really required to make kite fighting a safe and fun way to pass the time. Perhaps some simple rules or regulations are in order....you know, ban razor blades, limit ground glass abrasives to a limited amount of kite line, and cordon off the actual flight areas to the participants.

It sounds like fun.

They use to have that sort of thing in Malaysia too. But as far as know, it wasn't banned. The tradition just died out.