lahore:
A 14-year-old boy shot and killed his entire family, including mother and two minor sisters, allegedly “under the influence” of the online game PUBG, police said in the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province on Friday.
Nahid Mubarak, a 45-year-old health worker, was found dead last week along with her 22-year-old son Taimur and two daughters, ages 17 and 11, in the Kahna region of Lahore.
Her teenage son, who was unharmed and the family’s sole survivor, was found to be the killer, police said in a statement.
“The PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) addicted boy confessed to killing her mother and siblings under the influence of the game. He has developed some psychological issues because he spent long hours of the day playing the online game,” the statement said.
Police said Nahid was divorced and often admonished the boy for not paying attention to his studies and spending most of his time playing PUBG.
“On the day of the incident, Nahid scolded the boy about the matter. Later, the boy took her mother’s gun from a closet and shot her and his three other siblings to death in their sleep.
“The next morning, the boy raised the alarm and the neighbors called the police. The boy told police at the time that he was on the top floor of the house and did not know how his family was killed,” the statement said.
The licensed gun was bought by Nahid for the protection of her family, police said, adding that the weapon has yet to be recovered in a drain where the boy dumped it.
The suspect’s bloodied cloth has been recovered, they said.
According to a report in the newspaper Dawn, this is the fourth crime related to the online game in Lahore. When the first case surfaced in 2020, then-police officer of the capital Zulfiqar Hameed had recommended a ban on the game to save the lives, time and future of millions of teenagers.
Three young players of the game have died by suicide in the past two years and police in their reports stated PUBG as the reason behind the deaths, it said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially included gambling addiction as a disease in the International Classification of Diseases.
Gaming disorder is defined as a pattern of behavior characterized by decreased control over gaming (digital or video), increasing priority given to it over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences
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