Banned - The Kill Zone In Cyberia

Banning PUBG won’t help. Regulate children’s gaming habits instead.

- Lachmi Deb Roy

In 2000, Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku released Batoru Rowaiaru—Battle Royale—a dystopian thriller in which youngsters are forced to fight to death by government forces. Years later, a South Korean firm picked up the film’s plot to develop a PC game, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds—PUBG to millions of fans worldwide. But the game really took off when the mobile version was released on March 19, 2018. Exactly a year later, India is caught in the crossfire between authorities seeking to clamp down on the “violent game” and gaming enthusiasts who stress on a regulatory mechanism rather than an outright ban.

Last week, police in Gujarat’s Rajkot city arrested 16 people in two separate cases for playing PUBG in public places. Since then the game has been banned in Gujarat—apparently, the government feels the game can drag the youth towards terrorist activities. The Bombay High Court is hearing a PIL seeking a ban on the game. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights too has sought a response from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on a similar petition. As a debate rages over the game and its ill effects on children, Mumbai police said two people were run over by a train on Saturday when they were playing PUBG on a railway track in Hingoli district of Maharashtra.