LAHORE: A major consignment of kites and twine has been intercepted in Lahore with the arrest of two inter-district kite dealers, as the crackdown on kite sellers continues on the directions of DIG Operations Lahore Faisal Kamran.
North Cantonment police carried out the operation.
According to police, action was taken on secret information near Kapil Shadi Hall, where suspects named Shahid and Jameel were arrested red-handed while delivering kites and twine.
According to SP Cantt Atif Amir, 520 kites worth millions of rupees, spools of killer chemical twine, pannay, and dozens of spools without coating were recovered from the suspects’ possession.
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The distinction drawn in the recovery list is operationally important. Uncoated spools are legal to possess and sell; it is the chemically treated string — glass or metal powder bonded to the line with adhesive — that carries criminal liability and that has caused the fatalities historically associated with the festival.
Police said the suspects admitted to supplying kites and twine to various districts through online locations. Intelligence-based operations are under way for the arrest of their remaining associates.
The use of online location sharing represents the principal shift in how the illegal twine trade now operates. Distribution has moved away from fixed shop premises — which can be raided, sealed and monitored — to encrypted messaging groups where a temporary handover point is shared with buyers shortly before a delivery. That model leaves no permanent physical footprint for police to surveil.
A case has been registered against the suspects and they have been handed over to the investigation wing for further inquiry.
DIG Operations Faisal Kamran said implementation of the zero-tolerance policy against kite sellers, kite manufacturers and kite flyers would continue.
The crackdown is running in parallel with preparations for a regulated Basant. That combination is deliberate rather than contradictory. The provincial framework under the Kite Flying Ordinance 2025 permits kite flying within specified limits on kite and string dimensions, and licenses manufacturers, traders and retailers.
Enforcement is therefore directed not at kites as such but at the unlicensed supply chain and, above all, at chemically coated twine, which remains prohibited outright. Interdicting inter-district movement is the highest-value point of intervention, since a single consignment seized in transit removes stock that would otherwise disperse across dozens of retail points.
Police have continued raids across the district as the festival calendar firms up, with a separate operation intercepting a twine consignment moving into Lahore from Mansehra.
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