The people hurt at Basant are mostly not the people flying. On day one of Basant 2026 at least six were injured by stray string in Lahore, and motorcyclists were hit hardest — a 21-year-old in DHA took neck wounds riding home from the market and needed surgery. An eight-year-old girl in Gulshan-e-Ravi was cut on the throat by a string that simply fell on her.
That is the shape of the problem. A cut line does not stop being dangerous when it leaves the roof. This page is about the risk on the ground: who it reaches, what actually reduces it, and what to do in the first minute if you are there when it happens. What may lawfully be on the reel in the first place is a separate question, answered on the dor rules page.
Why a fallen string cuts
Three things combine, and none of them is obvious from a rooftop.
A cut line does not fall straight down. It drifts, and it keeps drifting — across roads, over wires, into the next neighbourhood. The flyer who lost it has no idea where it ended up.
It hangs at throat height. Snagged on a pole at one end and a tree or wire at the other, a loose line sits across a road at roughly the height of a rider's neck. This is not chance; it is where lines naturally come to rest.
A rider supplies the speed. Cotton line lying slack is harmless. The same line meeting a motorcycle at 40 km/h is not, because the rider provides all the cutting force. This is why riders take the worst of it, and why chemical or metallic line — banned, and the reason the Act carries the penalties it does — turns a bad cut into a fatal one.
If you ride in Lahore during Basant
The deflector rod is the one measure that demonstrably works, and it is what riders in Lahore fit. A vertical steel rod clamped ahead of the handlebars, standing above head height, catches a line before your neck does and lets it slide up and off. It is cheap, it takes minutes, and every Basant it is the difference between a snapped rod and a hospital.
Beyond that, the ordinary things matter more than usual:
- A full-face helmet, and something over the throat. The helmet protects the wrong part of you on its own — the cuts are to the neck.
- Slow down where kites are up. You cannot see a line against a bright winter sky at any speed, so the only variable you control is how hard you hit it.
- Do not follow a falling kite. Nearly every child hurt on the street was chasing one. Two boys, twelve and fourteen, were injured doing exactly that on Ravi Road.
If you are flying, the part that is yours
A flyer's responsibility does not end when the line is cut. Two habits make a measurable difference:
Reel in what you can. A line that comes down on your own roof cannot hurt anyone. A line abandoned because the kite is gone anyway is the one that ends up across a road.
Never leave line on a wire. If a cut line is hanging from a pole or a cable near you, it is now a trap set at head height, and it is not somebody else's problem. It is also a reason not to touch it yourself — not near a power line, ever.
The wider set of obligations on a roof — the wall height, supervision, what is banned up there — is covered by the 2027 SOPs.
What to do in the first minute
A dor cut is a clean, deep laceration and it bleeds fast. It is also survivable, and what happens in the first sixty seconds is most of why.
- Press, hard, and do not stop. Direct pressure with whatever cloth is nearest. Do not go looking for something clean first — pressure now beats pressure in thirty seconds.
- Keep pressing while help comes. Call Rescue 1122. Do not lift the cloth to check; lifting restarts the bleeding.
- Do not use a tourniquet on a neck. For a neck wound it is pressure only, and keep the person sitting up rather than lying flat.
- Go, even if it looks small. A dor cut is narrow at the surface and far deeper than it looks.
Rescue 1122 treated and transferred the injured on the scene throughout Basant 2026, and the first-aid requirement at designated venues in the 2027 rules exists precisely because this minute matters.
What the 2027 rules change
Three things in the new framework are aimed squarely at this.
Cotton only, and traceable. Every lawful pinna is QR-coded so line can be traced from manufacturer to buyer, which is what makes chemical string a supply-chain problem rather than only an enforcement one.
First aid at designated venues. Not a suggestion — part of the standard.
Flying confined to the festival days. Kite flying stays prohibited across Punjab outside 12–14 March, which compresses the risk into a window the city can actually staff.
None of that removes the line that drifts two streets over. It narrows when, and reduces how badly it cuts.
Frequently asked
How do most people get injured at Basant?
By stray string falling or drifting away from where it was flown — most often motorcyclists struck across the neck, and children hit while on the street or chasing a fallen kite.
Does a steel rod on a motorbike actually work?
Yes. A vertical rod standing above head height catches the line ahead of the rider and lets it ride up and over. It is the standard precaution in Lahore during Basant.
What should I do if someone is cut by a kite string?
Press hard on the wound with any cloth, do not lift it to look, call Rescue 1122, and keep the person sitting up. Go to hospital even if the cut looks minor — dor wounds are much deeper than they appear.
Is cotton dor safe, then?
Safer, not safe. Cotton at 9 tar cuts far less readily than chemical or metallic line, which is why only cotton is lawful — but any line at road speed can injure.
Can I be prosecuted if my cut string injures someone?
The Act's penalties attach to flying prohibited string and to the harm it causes. The practical answer is that losing a line is normal and abandoning it where it hangs over a road is not.
Kites, dor and everything that goes with them
Everything sold singly from Lahore at a published price — kites by the tawa grade, 100% cotton dor on QR-coded pinnay, and the gloves and tape that keep the flying end of this safe too. 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
- Dawn — At least six injured by stray kite string as Basant festivities kick off (6 Feb 2026)
- Geo — One killed, five injured in kite-flying incidents in Lahore (6 Feb 2026)
- PakWheels — Kite string injuries hit motorcyclists in Lahore, Basant 2026
- Dawn — Punjab announces new kite-flying rules (2 May 2026)