PUBG causes 3rd suicide

LAHORE: The third suicide case related to the online game Players Unidentified Battlegrounds (PUBG) in the provincial capital in two weeks has alarmed police authorities.

Eighteen-year-old Shaharyar was reportedly found hanging in a room in his rented house at the Punjab Housing Society, near Ghazi Road, on Tuesday.
The victim's brother, Shoaib, who works as a vendor, confirmed to authorities that he was a PUBG addict. The family belongs to Quetta.
A suicide note was found at the scene. The victim reportedly made a video call to a girl before committing suicide and also apologized to her friend and partner at PUBG, who is a merchant who lives on the bottom floor of the house.
Punjab Police Inspector General (IGP) Shoaib Dastagir warned in a letter to the Home Office that youth were being devastated by online gambling and their future was being ruined. The young man continued to play throughout the night and at least three of them had died from PUBG in recent days, he said.
Last week, the Senior Superintendent of Police (Administration) Liaqat Ali Malik sent a letter to the IGP on the matter. He noted that a young man, Mohammad Zakarya, son of Khawaja Sohail, a Henjerwal resident, committed suicide by hanging himself on June 23 after missing the "mission" assigned to him while playing PUBG. A mobile phone was found in a bed near the body with the PUBG game working.
The boy had appeared in enrollment tests and used to play for many hours a day. His father also confirmed his obsession with online gambling.
The official wrote that PUBG was an online battle royale multiplayer game that had gained immense popularity among young people. "Gambling has influenced young people and behavioral changes have been observed after" mission failure. "
The letter said that excessive violence could trigger aggressive thoughts, causing violent behavior; addiction to completing the mission caused pain, agony, and anxiety, resulting in depression and stress; Players spent more time playing PUBG, meaning they ended up being less socially active and sitting in front of the screen for too long causing a disruption in the sleep pattern, resulting in deterioration of physical and mental health.
The online game was developed by a South Korean company in 2017. It is designed as a survival game in which players are thrown onto an island and are supposed to fight to survive.
Punjab University professor of applied psychology, Dr. Farah Malik, said incidents and trends should be studied in the context of the current Covid-19 situation. The children had been locked up in houses for the past four months and were frustrated that they had no activities to channel their energy.
She added that the age of the two children who allegedly committed suicide due to PUBG was called psychology, the age of agitation. "It is the time when many hormonal changes are taking place." Children, especially children, need many activities. Lack of activities leads to frustration.
The letter called for steps to ban gambling and an awareness campaign to prevent such incidents in the future.
On June 20, a 20-year-old sophomore at FC College University also committed suicide after being scolded by his family for playing PUBG. The victim, identified as Jonty Joseph, lived in the North Cantonment area. His father reportedly chided him for playing the game online for a long period. The young man locked himself in a room. The next day, when he did not open the door, the family broke it and found him hanged.