A 52-year-old man riding a motorcycle died on the spot after a stray kite string — the banned, made-in-China variety — slit his throat, leading to excessive bleeding, on the Batal-Amritsar highway on Sunday evening. The string is banned by the district administration but it continues to be sold.
The victim, Harvinder Kumar, was identified as a resident of Jammu from the identity cards in his wallet, but more details were awaited as his family was still to reach Batala, police said.
On Friday evening, too, a 16-year-old boy dead had died due to electric shock when the kite string that he was holding came in contact with high-voltage wires, at Qadian.
The Chinese string is made of plastic material, which makes it more flexible and lethal in kite-fights, and it is also coated with chemicals to make it sharper. Worse, colours used in the string make it nearly invisible.