Another Victim of Killer Kite thread
Another Victim of Killer Kite thread
Flying kites is an ancient harmless sport. Exact origin is thought to be around 3000 BC but many written scriptures are found near 200 B.C. in China. Popularity of kites spread to Korea, Japan, India and in 13th century stories of kites spread to Europe via Marco Polo. In its nature the sport is itself very harmless and even this hobby was used in military, fish hunting, pulling carriages and helping an airplane to be in air.
In India paintings from Mughal era has shown kites to convey message to other ones and remained a popular time pass during the era.
In subcontinent festival of Basant is celebrated in plains of Ganges and Indus upon arrival of spring season. Because this season comes with the good news of upcoming harvest, the hope for prosperity in these agricultural lands. For centuries Basant festival remained a tribute to the spring with kite flying duels as icing on the cake but the harmless sport became deadlier day by day due to many factors like aerial gunfire(to express happiness), race to sharp strings, metal wire for flying and last but not least the nylon thread aka “Chemical Dor” to maintain dominance during dueling of kites.
From early 90s to late 1990s the event started to claim more and more lives due to above mentioned factors. In first decade of this century the sport got government support but the fatality rate kept increasing. From 2003 to 2006 dozens of victims were dead due to slitting of throats by the chemical threads and left hundreds of injured. Keep in mind the deaths in aerial firing and accidents to loot stray kites are exclusive of this. Most of the victims of this chemical thread were bikers and these deaths are almost in all cities where the Basant festival kept celebrating. In 2009 Supreme Court of Pakistan imposed ban on kite flying and law enforcement agencies started to take necessary steps which included the arrests of kite and thread manufacturer. Despite prohibition the deaths due to chemical string remained but in low count.
In late February 2020 Covid-19 hit Pakistan and in mid March Government imposed lock down to keep people in quarantines so the pandemic chain may break for the spread of the disease. Most of the law enforcement personnel engaged to keep lock down effective. This provided opportunity to some of bored people to do something positive which is flying kites with chemical thread as the only available option. The hobby started to haunt again by slitting throats in different cities
Dueling kites thrills like most of the sports out there but on what cost? A third person gonna lose his life by the hands of unknown. It is almost impossible to track down the culprits of crime which puts the responsibility of murder upon all of us. This harmless time pass is a death reaper who reaps the head of innocents by the hands of common folks.
A recent victim was in my city where a young boy of around 20 years got his throat slit while traveling on the bike. Young lad lost all blood within 2 minutes after the incident and was already expired before the arrival of any help. His life was snatched for what? For some moments of excitement. And what he lost his life and the space created in the life of his family will never be fulfilled, never. It does not matter how many of us raised the voice against this incident but it will matter that one should keep in mind the next victim could be him or someone close to him and it also applies on the kite flying imbeciles. Next time one fly a kite with killer threads, he should imagine lifting a coffin and it not worthy of anything.
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