Pakistan + Kite Flying + Festival = DEAD

Annual spring festival in eastern Pakistan. Let the party begin.
The festival is celebrated with thousands of colorful kites that fill the sky, flying by the wind.
It should be a good and beautiful way to celebrate the sun and all the good things that come with the new season but ....





















The festival has become highly competitive.

People employ extraordinary skills to bring down an opponent's kite often after bet on the outecome:

- Sometimes they use string coated in pulverized glass to cut an opponent's kite

- other times metal wire - which is often coated in corrosive chemicals

The authorities have banned the use of metal- or chemical-lined strings to try to prevent accidents or electrocutions from kite-flying.

But the city is in the grip of a kite-flying frenzy and bans do not seem to have much effect. Other problem are the celebratory gunshots fired into the air.

And the event is getting bigger and bigger: each year tens of thousands of people flock to Lahore from all around the country and beyond.

The festival has become big business. Any rooftop worth standing on is hired for corporate entertainment.

This year the dead appeared again.
At least 11 people died and more than 100 people were injured.
The deaths and injuries were caused again by stray bullets, sharpened kite-strings, electrocution and people falling off rooftops.

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