The information in this article is not intended to inspire anyone to take similar action. For those of you, readers, who feel symptoms of depression with a tendency to think about suicide, immediately consult your concerns with parties who can help, such as psychologists, psychiatrists, or mental health clinics.
In recent years cases of deaths due to online game addiction have been reported. Now the latest is a 14-year-old boy from Mumbai, India who committed suicide allegedly because of the game.
Launching from Gizmochina, this unnamed boy is known to be addicted to the battle royale game Garena Free Fire which was recently blocked in India.
Bhoiwada Police are currently investigating to find out if there was something related to the game that caused the boy to take such an extreme step.
According to police, the father, who works as a designer in a private company, got a call from his son but could not pick it up because he was away with his wife. A few minutes later he called his son again but the son did not answer the call.
Arriving at the house the father told him that the door to his son's room was locked so he had to break the window to open it. Once opened he found his son had died in his room and was immediately taken to the hospital for a post-mortem.
"Preliminary investigations have revealed that the boy is addicted to the online game Free Fire, but what exactly triggered him to take this extreme step remains a mystery." said Vijay Patil, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, zone 4.
"Online games that he's addicted to must be played in groups. So we're trying to find out who his friends are and who his in-game co-players are to determine if something happened during the game that made him take drastic steps." he continued.
With this in mind, the police have sent the boy's cell phone to a forensic laboratory to retrieve his data. Initial reports revealed that the boy was mostly browsing websites related to Free Fire and cricket games.
However, both the boy's parents and school teachers revealed that the boy never showed any signs of game addiction. They also stated that the boy was a bright student and liked cricket.
Jitendra Pawar, Senior Inspector, Bhoiwada, said: "No notes written by the boy were found. Nothing important from his cellphone conversations with his friends was found. Police.
Investigations are still ongoing to find out if it was indeed the boy's gaming addiction that prompted the boy to take this drastic step or if it was for some other reason.