Minor boy extorted by classmates for ‘playing online games’

Bengaluru: Six people, including two juveniles, were booked for allegedly threatening and extorting gold ornaments from a Class 10 student, who played “online games”, in western Bengaluru, police officials said Tuesday. The threats and extortion went on for six months before the victim told his parents who filed a complaint at the Rajarajeshwari Nagar police station on April 15.

According to the police, the two juvenile suspects were the victim’s classmates and had begun threatening him as he played Dream-11 and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGM) on their mobile phones.

“The two had threatened the victim and told him to pay up, failing which they would inform his parents about him playing online games,” Bengaluru police commissioner B Dayananda said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

“When the victim told his classmates that he had no money, they asked him to get gold ornaments from his house. Scared, the victim gave the duo 600-700 grams of gold ornaments, which he took from his house on several occasions,” the top cop said.

Four others involved

According to a complaint by the victim’s father, a city-based contractor, his elder daughter and son-in-law stayed in a rented house in Whitefield in Bengaluru and hence kept their gold ornaments at his place. Similarly, his second daughter, too, kept her gold ornaments at his house when she moved to London with her husband. 

When the second daughter and her husband returned recently, they had asked the complainant to get the ornaments. However, he was in shock when he found that the ornaments were missing, the FIR noted. 

“Initially, the boy feigned ignorance, but when asked firmly, he revealed that his two classmates had been threatening him for six months,” the FIR noted. 

Investigators subsequently arrested four others: M Karthik Kumar, 32, and Sunil, 30, from Gangavathi taluk in Koppal; Veman and Vivek, both 19, from Rajarajeshwari Nagar and Kengeri Satellite Town in Bengaluru, respectively.

During the probe, the police found that the two juvenile suspects had given the gold ornaments to the four suspects mentioned above who helped them to pawn it. A court later remanded the four to police custody for 10 days.

The police have recovered two gold bricks made by melting the ornaments and Rs 23.50 lakh cash obtained by selling the rest from two of the four suspects. The total seizure was worth Rs 41.50 lakh, the police said.

“The two juvenile suspects were counselled and let go on station bail,” an investigator said, adding that the others were booked on charges of extortion and criminal intimidation and sent to judicial custody. 

Police Commissioner Dayananda underscored the need to keep an eye on mobile addiction and online gaming among children.

“We request the public to guide their children so that they don’t fall for such addictions.”