Wedding celebrations are supposed to be happy events but
in northern India, a shocking number end tragically, thanks
to a surprisingly tenacious tradition of celebratory gunfire.
Take the wedding party in a small village called Raipur
Bhood in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh last weekend.
The photographer, employed to immortalise the special
day, was shot dead by members of the grooms' family
during a celebration ahead of the marriage party when the
men pulled out weapons and started firing.
Raju, known locally as Pintu, was shot in the stomach and
died of his injuries in hospital later. A 17-year-old girl
called Meenakshi was also shot and injured.
Celebratory gunfire isn't intended to injure or maim but
Raju and Meenakshi were not the only victims that
weekend.
The father of the groom at another north Indian village
shot and injured a 12-year-old boy, while in a third village,
a woman was injured as she watched a wedding.
Then there was the wedding party in the Alipur suburb of
the capital, Delhi, earlier in the week. As the wedding
celebration was in full swing, one of the guests, a man
named Vikas Kumar, pulled out a shotgun and a pistol and
started firing.
He loosed two shots into the air and a third at the ground.
Two of the groom's friends and three members of the
wedding band were shot in their legs and feet. All five were
admitted to hospital.
In February alone, a total of four people were killed in
celebratory firing in weddings just in the state of Uttar
Pradesh.
In one incident, the groom himself was fatally wounded
after one of his guests fired in the air.
Amit Rastogi was leading the traditional procession to the
bride's house on a horse when he was hit in the head.
Naturally enough, celebratory gunfire is something the
Indian authorities are keen to muzzle.
"Firing with guns and pistols during marriage processions
has become a sort of fashion," observed a Delhi judge as
he handed down a 25-month jail term to a man who fired
off a rifle during his friend's wedding last year, killing the
groom's uncle.
"It is high time that government tightens the procedure for
grant of arms-licence and also evolves a robust
mechanism to ensure these licenses are not misused,"
Judge Manoj Jain said.
Meanwhile, a court in the Uttar Pradesh capital, Lucknow,
has ordered that every case of celebratory firing be
investigated regardless of whether a case has been lodged
with the police.
"Escalation of this trend has to be arrested," warned
Justice SK Saxena.
Some families have responded with a no weapons policy
at their weddings.
"Kind Request: Please Do Not Indulge In Celebratory Firing
& Alcoholism," read the invitation that went out to the
3,000 guests of Mahirajdhwaj Singh Chandel.
"In the recent times," he explained to The Times of India,
"we have witnessed that innocent lives are lost in
celebratory firing, and a joyous occasion then simply
transforms itself into that of a mourning."
So what on earth is going on?
Celebratory gunfire is partly a show of machismo and
status, partly an alternative to fireworks, and it is not
confined to north India. It is also common in Afghanistan
and parts of the Middle East, Balkans and elsewhere.
Most commonly guns are fired into the air in the mistaken
belief that it will avoid injuring anyone. In fact those hit by
falling bullets are far more likely to suffer a fatal injury
than those in a normal shooting, according to a study by
doctors at a Los Angeles hospital.
The doctors identified 118 people who had been hit by
falling bullets between 1985 and 1992 and found that the
death rate was close to one third, compared to between
2% and 6% for those injured in regular shootings.
The bullets were travelling more slowly than those fired
directly at a person but were more likely to hit victims on
the head.
According to the study, a spent bullet falls back to earth
at between 90 and 180 metres per second, fast enough to
cause a fatal skull injury.
In 2003, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
investigated the risks following New Year celebrations in
Puerto Rico in 2003-04. It concluded that 19 injuries and
one death were caused by falling bullets over a two-day
period.
"Bullets are not greetings cards - celebrate without
weapons," was the slogan of a TV and radio campaign in
Macedonia in 2005.
The Indian authorities would be wise to undertake a
similar campaign.
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