A Pakistani court sentenced a teenager to 100 years in prison for murdering his mother, brother and two sisters during what investigators described as a violent outburst linked to his obsession with the online game PUBG.
The judgment, delivered by a Lahore court on Wednesday, concluded one of the city’s most shocking family murder cases.
Additional sessions judge Riaz Ahmed “handed down 100-year imprisonment on four counts to Zain Ali, 17,” a court official told PTI news agency.
The judge sentenced Ali to four life terms – 25 years for each of the murders – rather than the death penalty due to his young age at the time of the crime.
“The convict brutally killed his entire family under the influence of an online game,” the judge said.
“Because of his age, he is being given four life sentences instead of the capital punishment.
Ali was 14 at the time. He lived with his family in the congested Kahna neighbourhood of Lahore. Described as a “diehard PUBG player”, he reportedly spent most of his time locked in his room immersed in the game, drawing repeated scoldings from his mother, Nahid Mubarak, local news reports said.
PUBG is an online multiplayer video game featuring a battle royale format where 100 players compete to be the last one standing.
Police said Ali’s aggression usually spiked when he failed to complete his game targets.
“The day of the killings, Ali lost his senses after he missed a target while playing the game for hours and also got a snub from his mother,” police told the court.
Grabbing his mother’s licensed pistol, Ali entered the room where she was sleeping with his younger sisters and opened fire.
His mother, 45, elder brother Taimur, 20, and sisters Mahnoor, 15, and Jannat, 10, were all killed instantly.
Muhammad Ali Khan, a psychologist in Islamabad, later told VICE World News that the boy could have had underlying mental health conditions.
“Although it is not possible to ascertain what the perpetrator was thinking unless a one-on-one assessment is performed, a number of psychiatric diagnoses come to mind, including a psychotic break, problems with anger management, depression, bipolar disorder as well as impulse control disorder,” he said.
In his ruling, the judge said Ali’s crime was “influenced by addiction where a game became more powerful than family bonds”.
The Independent has reached out to Krafton, the primary developer of PUBG, for comment.
