Hindustan Times (Chandigarh)

15-yr-old Jalandhar boy steals ₹50,000 from father’s account

- Jatinder Mahal

JALANDHAR: A Jalandhar bike mechanic lost ₹50,000 to his 15-year-old son’s addiction to PUBG. Playerunkn­own’s Battlegrou­nds, popularly known as PUBG, is an online multiplaye­r battle royale game, which in the past few months has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.

In the recent case, a teen withdrew money from his father’s bank account to purchase a PUBG game controller as well as weapons for the online game, the Jalandhar police said on Saturday.

The matter came to light after the father filed a police complaint on January 20, citing that around ₹50,000 had been withdrawn from his bank account. He had not even received a one-time password (OTP) or any transactio­n alert.

As the cyber cell launched an inquiry, the truth came out.

“We found that money from the complainan­t’s account had been transferre­d to a Paytm account and used to purchase PUBG items through various transactio­ns,” said cyber cell in-charge Monica Arora.

With the help of Paytm officials, the contact number and address of the buyer was found.

“When we got the address, the matter became clear. The address was that of the complainan­t,” said Arora.

The complainan­t’s son — who studies in Class 10 — confessed that he stole and spent ₹50, 000 on the game after his father refused

to give him the money.

The boy used to transfer the money into his friends Paytm account using his father’s mobile phone at night.

“He used to delete all transactio­n messages from the mobile phone to ensure his father didn’t come to know about it,” said Arora.

After coming to know about his son’s involvemen­t, the man took back his complaint. Police did not share the identify of the complaint and his son.

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