Here’s why a 11-year-old has approached the Mumbai High Court to ban PUBG

Ahad Nizam, 11, a Class 6 student, says that mobile game PUBG promotes violence, aggression and cyber-bullying.

What’s more popular than the egg photo that’s gone viral on Instagram? But of course it’s Players Unknown Battle Ground, better known as PUBG. The casual and competitive action-packed, first-person shooter experience has redefined the Indian gaming ecosystem forever. But not everyone’s shooting – err, rooting - for it! An 11-year-old boy from Mumbai, Ahad Nizam, has moved the Bombay High Court, seeking a ban on the popular mobile game.

Nizam, who filed the public interest litigation through his mother, has said the game "promotes violence, aggression and cyber-bullying". His PIL requested the court to direct the Maharashtra government to ban it, NDTV reports.

In a letter dated January 25, Nizam wrote,

“After playing for a few days, I began to feel low and negative, so I stopped. This is why I have appealed to the government,” DNA reports.

Nizam, a Class 6 student at Arya Vidya Mandir, had written to multiple ministers, including Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Education Minister Vinod Tawde, Home Minister Ravi Shankar, City Police Commissioner Subodh Jaiswal. He also shot off letters to Microsoft Corporation India and the Medical Council of India, according to Money Control.

In December, the prestigious Vellore Institute of Technology in Tamil Nadu had banned the game from its campus. In January, Gujarat banned the game from its primary schools.

Also read: How PUBG has redefined the Indian gaming ecosystem forever

Nizam’s mother, who is an advocate, helped him file a PIL when state government officials did not respond. According to the Hindustan Times, Tanveer Nizam said:

“The petition has also sought a direction to the central government to form an online ethics review committee for periodical checking of such violence-oriented online content.”

The petition will possibly come up for hearing before a division bench that will be headed by Chief Justice N H Patil.

Incidentally, Nizam feels so strongly about PUBG that he even wrote to Changhan Kim, the CEO of PUBG Corporation. PUBG Mobile is developed, published, and distributed by Chinese Internet giant Tencent. The game has over 200 million downloads and 30 million daily active users outside China.

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