I see that people have started dying from having their throats cut by kite string. These are kids on the pillions of motorbikes, and the string has been coated with crushed glass. To be fair to the kite-flier, and the maker of the special string, their intention is not to cut the throats of young kids, but to cut the strings of other kites. But the kid is still dead.
Of course, if one were to go with what the late President Pervez Musharraf said, that Basant earned foreign exchange (from all those Indian visitors), would one mind these children dying? It’s interesting, but he was President when kite-flying was banned. The fact that kids still die shows that fanatics are still at it.
Still, I couldn’t help wondering. Why would anyone fly a kite? Kite flying is a competitive sport, which means that others have to be flying kites so that one sends up one’s own with the intention of cutting their strings. If you do, you are a public benefactor, because the cut kite will be looted by some urchin, the one who chased after it longest and hardest. You have also benefited the city’s orthopaedic surgeons, because some of the urchins who tried, didn’t give up the chase because they decided to let the better man win, but because they stumbled, or maybe misjudged a jump, fell, and broke one or more bones.
There may be a small minority who just send up a kite because they enjoy flying it. But why do they get twine with Manja on it? Are they on the lookout for other kites? Manja has become a sort of deterrent as well. But the end result is that some kid gets his throat cut. It’s not the winning kite that kills, but the losing, almost as if it’s proverbially kicking a stone on the road.
It seems that these days you could get kites as well as string online. Why don’t they come up with a programme that lets them fly kites online. In fact, why don’t you get kites flown in what is probably going to be the next big thing after AI–VR, or virtual reality. Virtual reality will let the kite flyers to slit as many throats as they want in VR, without anyone getting hurt in the real world.
Nobody was flying any kites at Besham, which was where some terrorists attacked a convoy of Chinese engineers working on the Dassu hydroelectric project. I know the knee-jerk reaction is to blame India for everything, but in this case, it would certainly benefit.
Motive, however, alone is insufficient proof of guilt. However, the motive has to be proven. If someone can show (which is highly unlikely), that he has a good reason to be in a room full of valuables in the dead of the night, he’ll get off. The prosecution wouldn’t find it very hard, but it would have to prove that he was there to steal the valuables. Of course, much of the prosecution’s case would go up in smoke if the defence could show there were no valuables in the room. But if the prosecution could prove that it was well-known the room had valuables, motive would be shown.
Of course, the accused would have to be there illegally. If he was snoring in bed at home, he couldn’t very well be convicted of attempted theft, or breaking and entering, So while India has the motive, that isn’t proof enough. Our government is going very carefully about this, because accusing India will mean accusing the USA, which i don’t think our government wants to do.
Does all this mean that the TTP and the Baloch nationalists are ‘tight’ with the Americans? Possible, but that would mean that the Left and the Right are on the same side.
Meanwhile, Aitchison College’s Principal has resigned, because of Governor Balighur Rehman’s interference and Ahad Cheema’s son’s fee. The Principal was on his way out, everyone says, but so was the Governor, who is to be replaced by a PPP nominee after the Senate elections on Tuesday.
Reminds me of 1993, when the solution of the Nawaz-Ishaq tussle was both resigning. Nawaz dissolved the National Assembly, and Ishaq went on leave till the end of his term. And the rest, as they say, is history. Well, history is being made at Aitchison too.
