LAHORE: A 14-year-old boy shot dead his entire family, including mother and two minor sisters, allegedly “under the influence” of online game PUBG, police here in the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province said on Friday.
Nahid Mubarak, a 45-year-old health worker, was found dead along with her 22-year-old son Taimur and two daughters aged 17 and 11 in Lahore’s Kahna area last week.
Her teenage son who remained unhurt and is the lone survivor of the family turned out to be the murderer, police said in a statement. “The PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) addict boy confessed to have killed 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,” the statement said.
Police said Nahid was a divorcee and often used to admonish the boy for not paying attention to his studies and spending most of his 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 that time told police that he was on the upper storey of the house and did not know how his family was killed,” the statement said.
The licensed pistol was acquired by Nahid for her family’s protection, police said, adding that the weapon is yet to be recovered from a drain where the boy had dumped it. The blood-stained cloth of the suspect has been recovered, they said. According to a report in Dawn newspaper, this is the fourth such crime related to the online game in Lahore.
—PTI

Press Trust of India