Teen Boy Gets Online Task To Kill Someone, Disappears After Attacking Woman

A teen boy in India has gone missing after he allegedly attacked a woman with a knife to complete an online task given to him by a stranger.

The police have started an investigation to trace the missing17-year-old schoolboy from the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand after he assaulted a woman Monday evening.

The incident came to light when the boy’s parents lodged a complaint to the police after he went missing following the assault, reported local news outlet Hindustan Times.

The teenager had left behind his mobile phone at home. As part of the investigation, the police examined his phone Wednesday and came to know that he was chatting with a stranger on an online platform.

“The Nehru Colony police, while probing the assault case, checked his mobile phone during which it came out that he was involved in chatting with a stranger on an online chatting platform named Discord where he was given the task of attacking a person,” Yogendra Singh Rawat, senior superintendent of police said.

Rawat said that the boy’s chat partner had assigned the teenager with the task “to kill someone, to suicide or to disappear,” reported news outlet Times Now News.

The victim who suffered injuries on her neck and torso in the knife attack is undergoing treatment at a hospital.

The boy was reportedly last seen in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. “Which suggests that he might still be there. Police are trying to find him as soon as possible,” another officer said.

“It is really worrisome that children are falling into such online traps wherein sometimes they often become the target of online bullying, blackmailing and even threatening. Out of fear, these children often do such acts like in this case,” Rawat said.

In a similar incident in June 2020, a teen boy from Pakistan reportedly committed suicide after failing to complete a task given to him in an online game, according to a news outlet The New Indian Express. Mohammad Zakarya, a 16-year-old boy, killed himself after he failed to complete the mission assigned to him while playing a popular online game, Player Unknown's Battlegrounds(PUBG).