Online game claims youth’s life

Victim shot by friends hitting targets as per ‘mission’

VEHARI:

Youths playing the video game PUBG allegedly killed their friend by shooting him in the head.

The police arrested the suspected murderers and seized the murder weapon, a motorcycle and mobile phones used in the incident.

According to a spokesman, Vehari police received a report about the body of a found youth on the bank of a canal with a bullet wound in the head. SP Investigation Farooq Ahmed Kamiana, SDPO Burewala Zafar Iqbal Dogar, investigation in-charge Waqas Ghuman and IT teams reached the spot and inspected it.

The victim was identified as 18-year-old Saqib Jutt, a ninth grade student.

Police teams traces the accused in five hours with the help of communication technology and intelligence information.

A team detained the suspects Luqman and Abdul Rehman during a raid and interrogated them.

The pistol used in the murder, the motorcycle and the mobile phones on which they used to play PUBG and record videos for social media were seized from the accused.

During the investigation, it was revealed that the deceased and the suspect Luqman were friends and classmates.

The investigators said they used to sit at the same desk and had been psychologically affected by playing the game for more than six months.

Saqib, Luqman and his friend Abdul Rehman acquired a pistol to complete a mission from the game.

Luqman and Abdul Rehman shot their friend while hitting targets as per the mission.

Saqib died on the spot while the accused fled from the spot with a motorcycle and the mobile phones.

In a similar incident two years ago, 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 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.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2024.