From another source:
”However, the festival also “sees revellers take place in deadly contests where they try to cut down other kites with their own kite string”, wrote The Mirror. It said these contests lead kite flyers to reinforce their kite strings “with glass powder or even metal, making it sharp enough to lead to the horrific deaths”.
Kite flying has become “notorious for causing death and serious injury in India”, said the Daily Mail, with two children dying at the event in 2016. That year the local government in India’s capital Delhi banned the use of sharpened, glass-covered strings, promising to “run campaigns to educate people about the dangers” as well as hand out punishments to those who do use them, said the BBC. In 2017, the National Green Tribunal banned the use of the strings, known as ‘manja’, across India.”