BENGALURU: Overwhelmed by his addiction for the popular Player Unknowns Battlegrounds (PUBG) video game, a 12-year-old boy called the railway police a couple of days ago and made a fake threat about a bomb placed at the Yelahanka railway station. The idea behind the prank was to prevent his classmate and PUBG playmate from departing by the Kacheguda Express from the station. Many trains got delayed by 90 minutes due to the bomb scare.
According to railway sources, a call was received on the railway helpline 139 around 2 pm on Wednesday (March 30) about a bomb in the station. The station was cordoned off immediately by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) with all security checks including by an anti-sabotage squad and dog squad until it was established to be a fake message.
"Repeated attempts to call back went in vain as the phone was switched off. However, they managed to trace his last location and found out it was a house at Vinayak Nagar in Yelahanka. The call was made by a PUBG-addicted boy from the phone his parents had given him. His whole intention was to prevent his classmate from boarding the train so that they can continue playing the game together," said a source.
The checks delayed all trains from Yelahanka station by nearly two hours, said Divisional Railway Manager, Bengaluru Division, Shyam Singh. "Our control received the call by 2.37 pm. All checks were done and the state police bomb disposal squad gave us written consent to operate our trains by 4.15 pm. We were able to restart our train operations by 5 pm," he said.
The boy's parents were called to the station and counselled on offering advice to him. Men in plain clothes too visited their residence and counselled the boy. Since he was a minor, no action would be taken against him, the source added.
PM Modi in an interaction on 'Pariksha Pe Charcha' held on June 9, 2020, in New Delhi, received a query from a parent on addiction to online games by her son. The PM had then responded, "Technology is a problem and a solution as well. It depends upon how we are using it."
PUBG has won numerous awards since its launch in 2017 and is a multiplayer mobile app and video game.