A 12-year-old child died when he fell off the roof of a house while chasing a drifting kite.
Mohammad Asad, son of Mohammad Akram, had been on the roof of his house near Jalwali Mosque when a drifting kite flew over him.
There were other children around at the time who could not reach for the kite, but they felt that it was within Asad’s reach.
They urged Asad to go for it.
The boy took it as a challenge, and in a state of excitement he jumped across his house’s roof into the roof of his uncle’s house who happened to be his next door neighbour.
As Asad’s action was fraught with danger, he lost his balance and fell from the roof.
When his family reached him, they found him in a pool of blood. They rushed him to a nearby hospital.
One of Asad’s cousins, Junaid, said that the doctor told them to go to the government hospital immediately.
They summoned an ambulance which arrived after a 15-minute wait. The child was taken to the district hospital, but due to excessive bleeding, Asad died at the hospital.
A severe head injury and a fractured neck had already neutralized any chance of survival.
An atmosphere of grief prevailed in the neighbourhood where Asad lived.
This is the first case of any child being killed in Lodhran in a kite related incident.
He was buried in his ancestral graveyard.
The extent of the family’s grief could be ascertained by the fact that they had already lost a daughter to the coronavirus last year.
Although sale of kites and their flying is strictly prohibited by the Punjab government, yet their sale is going on at various places in Lodhran city such as Purana Bazaar, Khawajawala Chowk and its adjoining areas.
One can easily observe the sky of Lodhran filled with kites after five o'clock every day.
Civil society groups have demanded of the deputy commissioner of Lodhran as well as the DPO of the city to take stern action against kite sellers so that children do not end dead while pursuing this deadly sport.
The District President of the Markazi Anjuman-e-Tajiran, Rao Ehsanul Haq, said that there was an atmosphere of mourning all over the city over the death of Muhammad Asad.
He demanded of the district administration to immediately ban kite flying and kite selling.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 18th, 2022.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ