Ahmedabad: One person died and over 100,
including a German, were injured due to cut from sharp strings
used for kite flying or fall from roof-tops and terraces
during Uttarayan festival across Gujarat on Friday.
One Dhruv Chauhan (17) died after falling off the
third floor of a residential complex in Maodasa town of
Sabarkantha district while flying kite, police said.
A German national, Yohan Flake, working as a volunteer
at a primary school in Bavla taluka run by the Blind People`s
Association (BPA), fell from the second floor of a building
while flying kite. He suffered injuries on head and other
parts of the body, officials of 108 Emergency Response Service
(ERS) said.
Flake, working with the school since the last 3-4
months, was admitted at the Sterling Hospital here and is
under intensive care, they said.
According to them, there were 46 cases of cuts on
throat and cheeks due to kite flying thread `manja`, a string
coated with mixture of glue and glass powder, making it razor
sharp.
As many as 64 cases of people falling from roof-tops
or terraces while flying kite were reported from different
parts of the city, they said.
Also, there were 27 cases of assault during minor
clashes in Krishnanagar, Bapunagar and other parts of the city
over issues related to kites.
In Rajkot, seven cases of cut due to `manja` were
reported, while the number of such incident was five in Surat.
Uttarayan is a harvest festival where kite flying is a
tradition.
PTI
