Lucknow Police nabs 2, including schoolboy, in gaming suicide case

Lucknow, Oct 1 (PTI) Two people, one of them a student, have been apprehended in connection with the suicide of a 14-year-old boy who lost nearly Rs 14 lakh in online gaming, police said Wednesday.

One of the accused is Sanat Gorai, 21, a native of Singhbhum district in Jharkhand, while the juvenile is a schoolboy from Bihar, DCP (Lucknow South) Nipun Agarwal told reporters. Yash Yadav, a class 6 student, hanged himself on September 15 at his house in the Mohanlalganj area of Lucknow.

Agarwal said the police have recovered Rs 4.71 lakh, an Apple laptop, purchased from the conned money, and several other major items. A sum of Rs 1.5 lakh was also frozen in different e-wallets.

Mohanlalganj Assistant Commissioner of Police Rajneesh Verma said, during interrogation, the accused said he came in contact with Yash while playing online game Free Fire Max.

"During chats and calls, the accused lured Yash into trusting him by promising to play the game and sell his ID in exchange for money. Yash sent the money but no ID was given to him. When Yash asked for his money, the accused threatened him. He was in contact with Yash for the last two months," Verma told reporters.

The money was deposited into at least a dozen bank accounts and e-wallets from where it was withdrawn, according to police.

Yash had been playing mobile and online games since 2018, police found.

The minor also had access to a smartphone which had his father's bank account linked, and this is how he hid transaction notifications and OTPs from his family.

At length, his father, Suresh Yadav, spotted the loss of money which he had received as proceeds of sale of an ancestral property. Yet, he did not inform his son about the missing money. The family only realised the gravity of the situation after the boy's suicide.

A probe is on to unravel the online gambling network involved in exploiting minors. PTI KIS VN VN