PUBG appears to have claimed another life

Youth allegedly commits suicide after parents stopped him from playing

DIJKOT:

A young man allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the head when his family forbade him from playing the PUBG game.

Twenty-year-old Abdullah, a resident of a Landianwala suburban village, used to play the PUBG game all through the night.

His family forbade him from playing the game which upset him so much so that he allegedly shot himself in the head.

Upon receiving information about the young man’s suicide, Landianwala police reached the spot, took possession of the body and sent it for the postmortem examination.

They registered a report of accidental death.

In similar incidents two years ago, several youths had allegedly committed suicide in the provincial capital reportedly due to the online game, the Players Unidentified Battleground (PUBG).

Ahsan, 20, had reportedly ended his life by shooting himself in the head in Harbancepura.

The victim had been reportedly addicted to playing the PUBG game. When admonished for long playing hours, he would have altercations with the family.

His family told the police that for the last couple of days he had been feeling pessimistic and frustrated.

On the night of the incident, he went to his room, and then in the middle of the night the family heard the roar of a gunshot. As they rushed to the spot, they found the victim lying in a pool of blood. A gun had been lying beside him.

This was not the first incident of suicide by youth allegedly due to the online game. Several incidents had been reported in the provincial metropolis in the year 2020, leading it to being known as the “killer game” in the city.

On June 30, Shaharyar, 18, reportedly was found hanging in his rented house in the Punjab Housing Society on Ghazi Road. Police had claimed that the reason behind the suicide was PUBG.

On June 23, another teenager, Mohammad Zakarya, a resident of Hanjarwal, had committed suicide.

The motive was found to be possibly the failure in completion of a mission as the game had been running on his phone when his body was found.

The victim’s parents had also confirmed his obsession with the game.

On June 20, a 20-year-old student of the second year at FC College University Lahore had also reportedly committed suicide for being scolded by the family for playing PUBG.

The victim, identified as Jonty Joseph, had been living in North Cantonment. On the day of the incident, his father reportedly had reprimanded him for playing PUBG game for a longer period. He locked himself inside a room. The next day when he did not wake up, the family broke the door and found him hanging.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2022.