LAHORE: Another teenaged boy is said to have died by suicide at Punjab Housing Society after failing to complete a task in a widely played online game.

Shaharyar, 18, was found hanged from a ceiling fan with a suicide note purportedly written by him near his body wherein he had called Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) a “killer online game”.

He also made a video call to an unidentified girl to air the extreme step, Cantt Division Superintendent of Police (SP) Furqan Bilal told Dawn.

The SP said the boy lived with his brother in a rented quarter at the Punjab Housing Society. His brother was not home at that time, he said, adding that police seized his supposed suicide note and mobile phone for forensic analysis.

He said Shaharyar’s brother was a salesman and police were trying to access the girl whom he made the video call to before hanging himself. “We will also grill a shopkeeper who was his partner in the PUBG game,” the SP further said.

In the alleged suicide note, he said, the deceased had mentioned PUBG as one of the reasons for his death and also apologised to the shopkeeper for any mistakes he may have made. This is the third incident this month in which a young boy had ended his life while playing PUBG.

The Lahore police department had already taken up the issue with the higher authorities through the inspector general of police to ban the online game. The Lahore capital city police officer had written a letter in this regard on the recommendations of Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Ashfaq Ahmad Khan.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2020