13-Year-Old Dies By Suicide After Parents Stop Him From Playing Games On His Phone

A 13-year-old boy in India killed himself after his parents stopped him from playing games on his mobile phone.

The police in the eastern state of Odisha said the boy, a grade 8 student at a private school in the Koraput district, had got the mobile phone to attend online classes. All schools in the country moved to online classes after the institutions closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The teenager's parents later found out the boy had become addicted to the games, and was not paying attention to his online classes. Even thoough his parents tried their best to dissuade him, he ignored them, a senior police officer said, according to India TV.

On Tuesday, when his parents snatched the mobile phone from him, the boy got angry and locked himself inside a room. He was later found hanging from the ceiling fan using a long piece of cloth. The child was immediately rushed to a local hospital where he was declared dead, IANS reported.

"We have registered an unnatural death case and sent the body for postmortem (autopsy). We are waiting for the report," officer Dhiren Patnaik reportedly said.

An investigation is currently underway into the incident.

In a report, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, said with the increase of dependency on smartphones, addiction to gadgets has become a serious problem, especially among children. Smartphone addiction has a negative impact not only on an individual's psychological health, but also physical health, the report stated.

Earlier this month, a 17-year-old girl in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad took her own life after her parents scolded her for playing video games. The teenager got upset when her father and mother yelled at her after she spent most of her time playing games. The mother had asked her to have dinner and go to bed early. But the girl got angry and went to her bedroom. She was later found hanging from the ceiling fan.

If you have thoughts of suicide, confidential help is available for free at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call 1-800-273-8255. The line is available 24 hours, every day.