“very, very sharp, which causes deaths, which cuts like a knife”
Sunday, June 17th, 2007I have claimed repeatedly that it is possible to get beheaded by a kite. Turns out I’m right (as long as you reinforce your string with steel and rub glass into it). But I’m never going to the park again, or to the kite festival in Pakistan.
From ABC radio in Australia:
…“Every year one or two children have died, but in Pakistan’s Punjab province, five children have been killed in just the last four months. The deaths are caused by kite strings being turned into lethal weapons, designed to cut the string of an opponent’s kite in a dog-fight. Some strings are laced with metal shards, others are treated with abrasive chemicals.
RANA EJAZ AHMAD KHAN: There is some solution or chemical and becomes a very, very sharp, which causes deaths, which cuts like a knife.
GEOFF THOMPSON: Rana Ejaz Ahmad Khan is the law and human rights adviser to the Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province. This week, he announced that from now on death by kite will be treated as death by an offensive weapon. In other words, murder.
Mr Khan says that in some cases, young children have been decapitated.
RANA EJAZ AHMAD KHAN: A number of deaths have taken place on the young people due to metallic or chemical wire. It is causing the death of innocent persons due to excessive bleeding, due to that metallic or chemical wire.
GEOFF THOMPSON: People have had their throats cut?
RANA EJAZ AHMAD KHAN: Yeah. The neck has been, you see, cut through and through because for minor children of three years, five years such incidents have taken place.
GEOFF THOMPSON: The incidents can be as serious as someone, some child having their head cut off completely?
RANA EJAZ AHMAD KHAN: Yes, yes.
GEOFF THOMPSON: That has happened?
RANA EJAZ AHMAD KHAN: Yes, yes.
