Online game addiction: Four held for extorting ₹40 lakh from student

The police arrested four men for allegedly extorting over ₹40 lakh from a 16year-old high school student by blackmailing him about his online game addiction.

The class 10 student, the son of a city-based builder, was addicted to online gaming. Two of his classmates, who were aware of his addiction, decided to make money out of it.

Police Commissioner B. Dayananda said that the classmates started to blackmail the boy. They threatened to inform his parents about his addiction and demanded money. They showed photos of some goons to the boy and threatened to harm him if he failed to pay up.

Scared, the boy stole 700 gram of gold valuables and some cash, totally amounting to ₹41.5 lakh, from his house and gave them to the classmates. The classmates gave the valuables to their contacts in Gangavathy town in Koppal district of Karnataka to dispose them suitably.

Valuables missing

The incident came to light on April 14 when the boy’s parents could not nd the valuables.

The parents inquired with their son, who confessed. Based on a complaint led on April 15, the Rajarajeshwarinagar police tracked down the boy’s classmates and, through them, arrested four of their accomplices — M. Karthik Kumar, 32, Sunil Suryakanth, 30, Veman Narendra, 19, and Vivek Rajashekhar, 19, from Gangavathy. They recovered the valuables and ₹25 lakh in cash.

Mr. Dayananda announced a cash reward to the police team that investigated the case.

The police recorded the statement of the boy’s classmates. They were counselled and let o‹ on station bail. The rest of the accused have been booked for blackmail, extortion and on other charges, and remanded to judicial custody.