Punjab's own figures for Basant 2026, given to the Lahore High Court, put seventeen casualties in District Lahore: twelve falls from rooftops, three electrocutions, two falls from trees. On the first day alone, one report had a 25-year-old man dead of electrocution and seven others injured.
Kite string injuries covers the cuts — throats, hands, motorcyclists. This page covers the other mechanism, the one that appears in every casualty list as a number and almost nowhere as an explanation.
The two ways it happens, and only one of them is while flying
Route one: the line bridges a conductor. Metal wire and metal-coated thread conduct, which is the whole reason they are banned. A line that drifts across an 11 kV distribution conductor — and in the older parts of Lahore those run at something close to roof height — puts the person holding the other end in the circuit. Cotton line is not a conductor in the same way, but cotton that is damp, or dirty, or has been dragged through a wet street, is not an insulator either. This is the version people picture.
Route two, which kills more people: going to get the kite back. A kite comes down on a line, or on a service drop running into a building, and somebody goes after it — with a bamboo pole, a hooked wire, a hand, from a wall or a tree or another roof. That is the step where the fatalities cluster, and it is mostly done by children and by teenagers chasing a free kite rather than by the person who was flying it.
The distinction matters because the two need different answers. Route one is answered by what you buy. Route two is answered by what everyone on and around the roof has been told before the day starts.
The rule the utility applies to its own staff
This is the most useful single line in LESCO's 2026 plan, and it was written for trained linemen, not for the public:
"No staff member shall remove a kite from power lines without first de-energizing the wires."
A utility that knows exactly what the line is carrying, and has the authority to switch it off, will not let its own people take a kite off it live. Read that next to the picture of a teenager with a bamboo pole and the advice writes itself: a kite on a line is lost. Not retrievable with a dry stick, not retrievable carefully, not retrievable because you can see that the wire is insulated — service drops get abraded, and what looks like insulation on a Lahore pole is often what is left of it.
Call it in instead. LESCO runs the 111 complaint numbers in the Lahore sub-division, and in 2026 it put control rooms at its headquarters and at the Commissioner's Office specifically for the festival, with the contact details of 136 XENs and SDOs shared with the relevant Assistant Commissioners. The point of that machinery is that somebody with a switch can act. Use it, and lose the kite.
What LESCO actually did in 2026
Worth knowing, because it tells you where the known weak points are. LESCO submitted a 27-point safety and power plan to the Lahore High Court in early February 2026. The parts of it that were reported:
- A Central Control and Command Centre at LESCO headquarters for electricity-related complaints, plus a control room at the Commissioner's Office for coordination with the district administration.
- A dedicated Data Darbar division control to keep power on in the Walled City — the densest flying area in Lahore.
- SDOs staffing control rooms across three shifts, 24 hours, and XENs stationed at 132 kV grid stations round the clock.
- Protective nets installed at key grid stations, including Shah Alam and Shahi Qila, to stop line reaching the equipment.
- 46 high-risk poles replaced after a survey found damaged wiring in Shah Alam Market, Liberty Market, Ichhra Bazaar and Moon Market.
- All staff leave cancelled for three days, and no load-shedding during the festival — the chief executive said supply would meet demand.
The National Grid Company separately formed emergency response teams for the transmission system feeding LESCO's area.
That list is also a map. If the utility surveyed its network and found the worst wiring in four specific bazaars, those are four places not to fly over and not to chase a kite into. And the reason the nets went up at Shah Alam and Shahi Qila is that metallic line landing on a transformer or inside a grid station had previously caused immediate shutdowns — the risk runs in both directions, from the sky to the grid as well as from the grid to the person.
What is not published: whether any of it worked. No feeder-level fault or outage data for the festival has been released, so nobody can say whether tripping actually fell in 2026. The three deaths are the only outcome figure available, and they are not an evaluation of the plan.
Before the day, if you are the one hosting
Twenty minutes of looking, done now rather than on the morning.
Stand on the roof and find the wires. Every conductor within a kite's reach: the street line, the service drops into your building and the ones next door, and anything crossing a corner diagonally. Diagonals are what catch line, because nobody expects a wire where there is no pole.
Decide which directions are closed. On most Lahore roofs there is one quarter of the sky you should not fly into at all. Say so out loud, to everybody, before the first kite goes up. A roof that has been briefed behaves differently from one that has not.
Remove the retrieval tools. Bamboo, pipes, long hooks, anything metal and longer than an arm. If it is not on the roof, nobody uses it at the moment they stop thinking.
Buy line that cannot conduct. Cotton, nine tar, on a QR-coded pinna you can check. Chemical dor and manjha is the material both problems start with, and it is an offence under the Punjab Kite Flying Act 2025 before it is a hazard.
Keep the children off the edges and off the stairs. The electrocutions are mostly retrieval; the retrievals are mostly children. Basant with children sets out what is reasonable at what age.
Have the number up before you need it. LESCO's 111, and your area's Assistant Commissioner's office. Written on the wall, not in somebody's phone.
Frequently asked
How many people died of electrocution at Basant 2026?
Punjab told the Lahore High Court that of seventeen casualties in District Lahore, three were electrocutions, twelve were falls from rooftops and two were falls from trees. A separate report on the first day described one electrocution death and seven injuries.
What should I do if my kite gets stuck in a power line?
Leave it and report it. LESCO's own instruction to its staff is that no one may remove a kite from power lines without first de-energising the wires, so an untrained person with a pole is taking a risk the utility will not let a lineman take. Call the 111 complaint numbers in Lahore rather than attempting it.
Can cotton kite line conduct electricity?
Dry cotton is a poor conductor, which is why cotton is the permitted material. Damp or dirty cotton is not reliably an insulator, and metal wire and metal-coated thread conduct outright — which is why they are banned and why they have caused both deaths and grid shutdowns.
Does LESCO switch off power during Basant?
No. In 2026 LESCO said there would be no load-shedding during the festival, kept all staff on duty for three days and ran control rooms round the clock. The shutdowns associated with Basant are unplanned ones, caused by metallic line landing on transformers and grid stations.
Which parts of Lahore are the most dangerous for kites and wires?
LESCO's own 2026 survey found damaged wiring in Shah Alam Market, Liberty Market, Ichhra Bazaar and Moon Market, and replaced 46 high-risk poles across them. Protective nets went up at the Shah Alam and Shahi Qila grid stations. The dense Walled City streets are where lines sit closest to roof height.
Kites, dor and everything that goes with them
Kites by the tawa grade, 100% cotton dor on QR-coded pinnay, gloves and tape — all sold singly from Lahore at a published price, delivered by our own rider. See the products and prices.
Selling is paused while our registration is suspended by the Punjab Government — see the notice. The products and prices stay published so you can plan, and we answer questions either way.
- Patang & gudda
- Cotton dor
- Pinnay
- Gloves
- Tape
- Delivery in Lahore
Sources
- Arab News — Punjab tells court 17 killed during Basant kite-flying festival this month
- The Express Tribune — LESCO submits 27-point plan to LHC for Basant power supply
- Minute Mirror — LESCO's 27-point safety and power plan for Basant
- ProPakistani — LESCO announces electricity supply schedule for Basant in Lahore
- Minute Mirror — LESCO chairman warns against metal kite wire during Basant
- Pakistan Today — SOP violations mar Basant as electrocution death, seven injuries reported
- Dawn — Teams to protect Lesco system on Basant