Posted on 02/26/2007 10:00:21 AM PST by 2banana
LAHORE, Pakistan — At least 11 people died and more than 100 people were injured at an annual spring festival in eastern Pakistan celebrated with the flying of thousands of colorful kites, officials said Monday.
...
Police arrested more than 700 people for using sharpened kite strings or firing guns, and seized 282 illegally held weapons during this year's festival, said Aftab Cheema, a senior Lahore police officer.
Five of those who died on Sunday were hit by stray bullets, including a 6-year-school boy who was struck in the head near his home in the city's Mazang area, Bano said.
A 16-year-old girl and a school boy, 12, died after their throats were slashed by metal kite strings in separate incidents. Two people were electrocuted while they tried to recover kites tangled in overhead power cables, Bano said.
A 13-year-old boy fell to his death from the roof of his home as he tried to catch a stray kite, and a 35-year-old woman fell off the roof of her home trying to stop her son from running after a stray kite, Bano said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Kite Fliers of Peace Alert.
We should "understand" these degenerates.
"Sharpened kite strings"? What are those?
Aids stealth beheading.
Likely some kind of steel wire.
Wow! That kite string will wear out a sharpening stone in a hurry.
I don't know how one would sharpen a kite string. A friend and I glued broken glass on kite tails and put razor blades on the kite cross members to cut other's kite strings.
The custom is detailed in the (excellent) book The Kite Runner.
That's exactly how they do it there... see my #9.
LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistani provincial authorities on Thursday lifted a ban on kite-flying imposed a year ago after several bystanders were fatally slashed by glass-coated strings used in the competitions.
*snip*
Glass-coated or metal strings will be prohibited, Ghani said, and authorities will issue licenses for selling kites and strings. Kites larger than 2-feet-by-2-feet will not be allowed, to prevent the use of heavy strings.
Sounds like a Hindu festival, not muzzie.
I'm not sure if this is the case here, but I know in ancient China "kite fighting" was a competition where people would use specially built kites and pit themselves against each other to try to outmaneuver their opponent. Sections of the kite strings were soaked in glue, then dipped in ground glass and would be used to try and saw the opponents kite from its tether.
The kite flying may be a competition of sorts. The strings are coated with something sticky (tar?) and pulled through glass shavings. The object is to cut the strings of the other kites (without getting your own kite cut). As the kites go free and fall to the ground they are caught by children (kite runners). The kites engage in "battles" dodging and moving in on each other. It apparently requires skill and the winner is celebrated, as is the child who catches the next to last kite
At least that's how it is explained in the book.
What? Is it off-season for soccer?
poor man's version of R/C plane flying -cutting the other guy's ribbon.
Sounds like the taliban had good reason to ban kites. ;-)
Man, they don't mess around. In other Paki news, 41 people were bludgeoned, suffocated or stabbed to death in a nearby 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' tournament.
Leave it to the muslims to turn a kite show into a bloodbath.
Leave it to Islam to take a pleasant child's past time and turn it into blood sport filled with death. What is there that Islam touches that it cannot pollute?
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