The incident which has been reported from Lucknow where a teenage boy ended up killing his mother after she scolded him for playing the online game, PUBG, has sent shivers down the spine of people who still carry a heart within them, rest, those are just “breathing,” don’t even seem have heard about it and are seen scrolling-past such disturbing news. There have been several other such incidents across the country, but this one is beyond everything and puts a question mark over the implementation of various policies of the Government brought to have a check on such platforms.
There have been reports where the teenagers ended up using the debit cards of their grandparents to pay the bills of the addictive games and when their grandparents came to know about the same, the children either ended up killing their age-old grandparents or assaulting them. However, what seems to be lacking is the proper gatekeeping and a constant eye on the use of such platforms, which make their users, especially teenagers, go crazy.
While the PUBG, which is termed the most addictive of all the games, is a Chinese product, the same was banned by the Government of India after there were clashes in the Galwan area of Eastern Ladakh. At that time, the parents heaved a sigh of relief that their wards would be off of some major distraction, lure now, but the same turned out to be short-lived as there was an Indian version of the game quite available, which then again pushed the teens, already craving, to tread the same path of addiction, and end up committing grave crimes in extreme cases.
The truth is that the Government does not have a proper and result oriented policy to keep a check on such gaming platforms, which are, not only proving to be dangerous for the teens—as they start getting to know the addiction part in their lives very early—but are putting them on the path of crimes of different nature. This side of the gaming, which is dark and magnetic, needs to be addressed, at least masked, for the betterment of the young generation. For that, there is a need for the proper implementation of IT rules, and targetted policies. It also needs to be noted here that the policies cannot always look at revenue, rather, a large part of the same needs to look at the regulations, checks, and balances—which are currently missing.
No matter, entertainment is important, but that cannot come at such a big cost where we see 16-year-old boys killing their mothers, and hiding their bodies, because they tried to stop them from playing the destructive games. No, not at all: Government needs to step in.
