Three Indians Die After Throats Slit By Kite String
MEP: A man and two children have lost their lives after their throats were slit by glass-coated strings used for flying kites in India during the country’s Independence Day celebrations.
Both 3-year-old Saanchi Goyal and Harry, 4, were travelling with their heads out of sunroofs in cars on Monday evening, when kite strings slit their throats.
Zafar Khan, 22, died in the same manner when he was riding his motorbike.
Many Indians fly kites to celebrate festivals, with razor-sharps strings, known locally as manja, designed to bring down competitors’ kites.
A Delhi government notification said on Tuesday that the sale, production and storage of metal or glass-coated kite threads would be banned in the capital. Only the use of cotton thread and natural fibre free of metallic or glass components would be allowed for flying kites, said the notification, imposing a penalty of one lakh rupees and five years in prison for those who violate the ban.
Similar strings killed a five-year-old boy in 2015 in the northern town of Moradabad, and a five-year-old girl died in Jaipur in 2014.
