The carbide gun social media craze, which turned into a health crisis and left nearly 200 people injured across Madhya Pradesh during Diwali, has prompted the state to ban the devices, with officials admitting that they failed to anticipate the scale of the problem despite a warning dating back to 2023.

Government sources in the Bhopal administration said that the crackdown on carbide guns was hampered by stretched resources, inadequate threat assessment of social media trends, and a failure to heed medical research that flagged the danger two years ago.

Carbide guns have long been used by farmers to scare monkeys, but social media attention to the devices prompted many to try them at home during Diwali.

Senior officials in the administration acknowledged that the “state machinery was

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