Ten college students are arrested in Rajkot, Gujrat after they were caught playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on mobile. The game was banned last week over concerns that it’s too addicting and violent.
According to the local media, the students were so engrossed that they didn’t realise that police were approaching the students to arrest them. The students were released on bail later.
Although PUBG is legal in rest of India, Gujarat dropped out the game after parents and educators complained that the game was too violent and distracted students from studying. In February, a local minister in Gujarat described it as ‘a demon in every house’.
Last month, PUBG’s parent company Bluehole released a statement to local Indian media to address the concerns, saying, “we also believe that it is extremely important for us to be a responsible member of the gaming ecosystem. To this end, we constantly work and shall continue to work with … parents, educators, and government bodies, and listen to their feedback on what we can do.”
Gujarat is the only Indian state to ban the game — which has been downloaded more than 100 million times around the world. The game has garnered several million users around the globe. However, the game’s popularity, bordering on addiction, in some cases has become a cause of concern for many parents across the country.