Barmer News Desk: As soon as you open the online gaming social media platform, you see videos of many celebrities promoting it. This publicity and game apps have made children of school age into debt worth lakhs of rupees by giving them the dream of becoming rich. Some youth even ended their lives due to addiction of online gaming. But the surprising thing is that legal action is not being taken against these gaming platforms which are robbing the future of children and ruining many families. There are many such cases in Barmer, Rajasthan in which the entire family has been ruined due to online gaming. Because children these days are falling prey to moneylenders. To become rich through online gaming, people get trapped in taking loans from moneylenders and then to pay the interest, their entire houses are sold. Because this amount is in lakhs.
Loan worth lakhs on 10-12th class students, interest is more than the principal amount
You will be surprised to know that many children studying in class 10th to 12th of Barmer city are in debt of Rs 10 lakh each. Most of these children fell into the trap of online gaming and took loans from people who were charging interest of Rs 10 per hundred. This loan mafia is not only making illegal recovery in the name of interest. Rather, by giving loans to school children, they are also making them addicted to online gaming, gambling and drug addiction. This interest mafia is maintaining its hold in many schools and colleges. Where any child needs money, this money is immediately given to these children in the form of loan. It starts with Rs 1-2 thousand or Rs 5 thousand and gradually as the loan increases, the interest mafia puts pressure on the children.
Not only this, another associate of these loan mafias gives more money to these children on the pretext of repaying the loan. While he is also a member of the same gang, the children do not know that they are trapped in his clutches and the debt increases further. Gradually the debt increases and when it reaches less than Rs 10 lakh, the interest mafia reaches the homes of these children.
Four dangerous cases of online gaming happened in Barmer
Case 1. Babulal, resident of Shastri Nagar of Barmer city, used to work as a house builder. There are three sons and one daughter in the family. Babulal’s middle son Vikram, aged 23, completed his college studies and was married with great pomp a year ago. After marriage, everything was going well, Vikram was pursuing further studies and also preparing for a job. The wife was 6 months pregnant and one day Vikram suddenly committed suicide by hanging himself in the room on the roof of the house. The family did not understand anything, everything was fine between husband and wife. Nothing happened in the family too but this dreadful step of the son broke the back of the family. On the third day of his death, when Vikram started receiving calls from unknown numbers on his mobile, his younger brother searched Vikram’s mobile and came to know about the whole matter. Vikram lost all his money after falling into the trap of online gaming and took a loan of lakhs of rupees. These people were continuously putting pressure on Vikram to recover the money. Troubled by this, Vikram took the dreadful step of suicide. Two months after Vikram’s death, his wife gave birth to a daughter, but his gambling addiction took away the happiness of a family. In the case of suicide due to debt crunch, the family appealed to the police station, District Superintendent of Police, District Collector and even Jodhpur Range IG, but no action was taken.
Case 2. A family in the city has a good business. The family was living a happy life. In such a situation, the son got addicted to online games and after losing the pocket money, he came in contact with the interest mafia. When a family is rich then it would not be good to give it away. The interest mafia gave a loan at an interest of Rs 10 per hundred. When the amount exceeded Rs 10 lakh, the loan mafia approached the father for recovery. The father was forced to repay his son’s debt by selling the house.
Case 3. The minor son of a person running a tea shop in the city started playing online games after seeing the misleading propaganda on social media and dreamed of becoming rich overnight. At first, I played the game with the little money I got from home, but could not get the work done with less money. I borrowed Rs 50,100 per hundred from the moneylenders and lost the game. To repay this loan, it seemed that this game would give lakhs of rupees, so I borrowed money on interest from wherever I could get it. Gradually the loan figure reached close to Rs 15 lakh and when the interest mafia reached home, the ground slipped from under the feet of the family. Now the father is joining hands with this interest mafia.
Case 4. The son of a businessman resident of the city got so addicted to gaming that he took a loan worth lakhs of rupees from the interest mafia. When he did not get money from the game, seeing his debt increasing, he withdrew Rs 10 lakh from his father’s bank account. When the father got wind of this, he tried to reason with his son but the son is not ready to give up this addiction.
Online gaming is hollowing out the future of the youth like a termite. Many young and minor children of Barmer are wasting their lives by getting trapped in this trap and instead of giving advice to stay away from this addiction, many social media celebrities are using it and dreaming of becoming millionaires overnight. In such a situation, the demand to ban such gaming platforms has been going on for a long time.
