A 16-year-old boy in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, allegedly shot dead his mother with his father’s pistol after she reportedly stopped him from playing the popular online game PUBG, the police said on Wednesday.
The minor then hid the body in the house for two days and fabricated a story before confessing to the crime, the police said.
While there had been constant friction between the boy and his mother over his gaming addiction, they had a strained relationship in general as the boy often felt curtailed by his mother, a senior police officer said.
The argument over PUBG served as the “final nail”, Qasim Abidi, ADCP East Lucknow, told The Hindu. The incident happened on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.
The boy lived in the house with his mother and 10-year-old sister. The father is serving in the Army and is posted in Asansol, West Bengal.
When the police first reached the house to investigate the murder, the boy told them that an electrician who had come to their house for wiring work shot dead his mother after an argument. However, since the body had decomposed to some extent, the police suspected that there was more to the story. There were also no signs of forced entry into the house, the police said.
“The boy was an addict of PUBG and his mother would stop him from playing the game,” Mr. Abidi said.
Mr. Abidi said the boy had a strained relationship with his mother as she would often put restrictions on him and stop him from going out and ask him to focus on studies.
The boy wondered why she would stop him from playing games on his mobile phone, the officer said.
“He didn’t take it well,” Mr. Abidi said, adding that the boy had run away from home twice earlier after arguments with his mother. The immediate cause of the incident seems to be an argument the boy had with his mother after she accused him of stealing money. The boy denied that he had stolen money, Mr. Abidi said. “She must have slapped him. He couldn’t bear it,” the officer said, adding that the boy killed her in a “fit of anger accumulating over the past few months or even years”.
The boy was later sent to a reformation home.
