Lahore: In a terrible incident of juvenile crime, a family paid the price for an act of misplaced bravado by a teenager.
A 14-year-old boy shot dead his mother, elder brother and two minor sisters. According to Lahore police, the youngster committed the crime “under the influence” of online game PUBG.
Health worker Nahid Mubarak, 45, was found dead with her 22-year-old son Taimur, 17-year-old daughter and 11-year-old daughter in Lahore’s Kahna area last week.
The unhurt 14-year-old ‘killer’ is the lone survivor of the family, police said.
“The PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) addict boy confessed to killing her mother and siblings under the influence of the game. He has developed some psychological issues because of spending long hours of the day playing the online game,” a police statement said.
According to police, Nahid was a divorcee and often chided her teenaged son for ignoring studies and spending too much time playing PUBG.
“On the day of the incident, Nahid scolded the boy over the matter. Later, the boy took out her mother’s pistol from a cupboard and shot her and his three other siblings dead in their sleep.
“Next morning, the boy raised an alarm and the neighbours called the police. The boy at that time told police that he was on the upper floor of the house and did not know how his family was killed,” the statement said.
The pistol used by the boy was a licensed weapon which Nahid had acquired for the family’s protection.
According to a report in Dawn newspaper,
This is the fourth crime related to online game reported in the last two years Lahore, The Dawn wrote.
Gaming is an addiction which has adversely affected children and teenagers in several countries, leading to multiple ‘accidents’ like this one.
World Health Organisation (WHO) has included ‘gaming disorder’ as a disease in the International Classification of Diseases.
