Watch the YouTube video in this story.
By The American Bazaar Staff
BANGALORE: Paragliding can be a daunting proposition to even the most experienced adrenaline junkie. But in Kerala, one set of parents had no problem sending their 11 month-old daughter up to perform the dangerous stunt, and are now facing possible child abuse charges for doing so.
Paragliding is the act of strapping yourself to an open parachute while a car or boat drags you behind it, lifting you up as high as 2,500 feet in some cases. The adventure sport is a popular recreational activity on beaches, where speedboats tow tourists out into shallow ocean waters to get a beautiful panoramic view of the beach and the vast ocean in front of it.
At the Muzhipillangadi beach in Kannur, Kerala, 11 month-old Niya Nizam was taken 40-50 feet up in the air, strapped to her mother while paragliding along the beach’s shoreline. The toddler was screaming and crying hysterically both before and after the flight, clearly too afraid to go up. The mother, however, assured everyone that the child would be fine, citing that she has logged a significant amount of paragliding experience under her belt.
The incident was caught on video and uploaded to YouTube, where it caught the attention of local law enforcement. Now, Kerala police have said that they are looking into possible child abuse claims, saying that taking the infant on such a potentially dangerous paragliding incident could have been traumatizing.
The Malabar Adventure Sports Society, which organized the paragliding event on the beach, has been criticized for allowing the parents to take such a young child up with the mother. But others, while not entirely coming to the defense of the child’s parents, are at least wondering why people should involve themselves if the parents knew the child would be safe and the daughter was unharmed, at least physically.
The parents and organizers of the event have already given statements to the police. No arrests have been made yet, but they could be in the coming days.
The YouTube video of the paragliding incident can be viewed below: