After PUBG claims another life in J-K, child rights activist writes to PM, urges ban

Dinesh Manhotra
Tribune News Service
Jammu, July 31 

As the mobile game PUBG (Players Unknowns BattleGrounds) claimed one more life in Jammu, the ex-chairperson of J&K Women and Child Rights Commission, Vasundhara Pathak Masoodi, sought an intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “ban this violent and abusive game”.

Vasundhara wrote a letter to the Prime Minister after the recent violent incidents resulting in deaths due to the game.

On Thursday, four PUBG players allegedly stabbed a man to death only for opposing a nuisance created by them while playing the mobile game in Badiyal area of R S Pura in Jammu district.

As per the police, a 25-year-old man was stabbed to death by four PUBG players after he asked them not to create a nuisance and used abusive language.

“This letter has been triggered as an aftermath of very recent and painful violent incidents, news of suicides, committed by young children due to a highly exploitative, abusive and violent game,” Vasundhara said in the letter.

She also sought to draw the attention of the Prime Minister towards a shocking incident that was reported on July 19, 2020, when a 13-year-old boy in Qasbayar village of Southern district Pulwama, J&K, committed suicide after his younger brother didn’t let him play PUBG on a mobile phone.       

“I may take this opportunity to invoke the advice shared by your good self to our younger generation during an interaction at an event called Pariksha Pe Charcha (second edition) at Talkatora Stadium, New Delhi on 29thJanuary 2019. ‘I hold technology in very high regard. But everything has two sides. If technology is narrowing us and our thoughts; it will be a big setback. Technology should expand our horizons. To laugh and play in open grounds is very important. Technology can narrow your brain if you don’t use it for the correct purpose. Misuse of technology can result adversely," she urged the Prime Minister.

“The above-referred advice by your good self is extremely imperative in the current parlance and this letter/appeal may seek to draw the kind attention by your good self in respect of my serious concerns regarding the presence of some of the online games that seek to inculcate violent, abusive, aggressive and abrasive behavioural abnormalities in the children and youth of our country,” she mentioned and added that such games were giving rise to growing unrest, impatience and horrible reflexes in them.

“I personally met with several parents, teachers and other stakeholders who registered their grievance against PUBG and other violence-inducing games during my tenure as Chairperson, Jammu and Kashmir Commission for Protection of Women and Child Rights. They shared horrific incidents of misbehaviour and psychological abnormalities in youngsters who were highly addicted to playing violent games such as PUBG and Free Fire instead of focusing on academics and other creative/physical activities,” she recalled.

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