Young offenders promise never to fly a kite

District courts overcrowded with suspects' families

RAWALPINDI:

Young offenders caught celebrating Basant promised before magistrates that they will never fly a kite.

The district courts in Rawalpindi were overcrowded on Saturday with friends and families of young people arrested for flying or selling kites, setting off firecrackers and aerial firing on Basant.

Police chose not to put handcuffs on these juvenile offenders and instead bought them to the court with ropes tied around their hands. One group of kite-ban violators was brought with the end of qameez (long short) tied to the qameez of the other one.

The judicial magistrates of respective precincts set some 65 underage kite fliers free with a slap on the back of the hand levying a Rs5,000 fine only. At least 31 above 18 offenders were released on personal bail bonds of Rs20,000.

However, judicial magistrates sent 47 kite sellers arrested from various areas of Rawalpindi to jail on judicial remand.

As per Punjab Prohibition of Dangerous Kite Flying Activities, whoever commits or abets an offence of dangerous kite flying activities at any place shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three months or with fine which may extend to Rs15000 or with both.

Distraught families of the young people thronged the district kutcheri drawing the attention of usual suspects of murder, rape, robbery and mugging who are brought here.

The young kite-flyers were riled by the special judicial magistrates and many of them promised before the magistrates that they would never fly a kite again.

The young suspects committed that they would never do aerial firing or set off firecrackers and give full attention to their education.

The court also censured the parents of the young kite-flyers for allowing them to indulge in activities declared illegal by the government.

Students including Asghar, Talal Ahmed, Muhammad Younus, and Sohail said that they would never celebrate Basant again. They added that they have been rebuked by their parents and would never repeat the same mistake.

Crackdown continues

Police arrested around 450 people on Saturday during a crackdown against kite flyers on Basant and seized around 13,000 kites besides, spools of strings, sound systems, fireworks as well as weapons and ammunition.

According to a police spokesman, surveillance teams were monitoring kite flyers with the help of drones and surveillance cameras. He said police were conducting raids to trace those seen in videos obtained through drones and surveillance cameras. CPO Ahsan Younas had passed the directives to take strict action against the kite sellers. He made it clear that no one would be allowed to violate rule of law.

Earlier, a boy was killed after he suffered an electric shock while trying to catch a stray kite, and dozens of people were injured from stray bullets and in kite flying-related incidents.

Though 2,500 police personnel were deployed to check kite flying and aerial firing, people violated the ban to celebrate the festival, especially in Sadiqabad, Dhoke Kala Khan, Pirwadhai, Hazara Colony and Shamasabad, the residents said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2021.