2007/01/23

Deadly kite flying?

I read today's Gulf News' headline "Government's kite flying plea rejected" and thought, "what in the world would a government be making a plea about kites for?"

Reading the story was no help and only left me with more questions:

"The [Pakistani] Supreme Court has rejected the Punjab government's plea to allow kite flying, describing it as a deadly sport".

What....? Kite flying? What in the world are they doing with kites in Pakistan to kill people? Don't you need to explain in an article like this what exactly is so deadly about kites? Well, it turns out that it is true:

"During Basant last year, seven people were fatally slashed by glass-coated or metal-reinforced kite strings", which flyers are using in kite fights.

1 comment:

Punk Dervish said...

Not only seven people were killed but a big no was injured too.And the worst thing was that everyone riding on motor bike was going around with protective wires around them.Basant is really a huge festival.Around basant it is not possible to find a sigle roof in the city of 70 million people where someone is not flying kites.I hope the government gets permission to allow kite flying.