A court in Meherpur has jailed two teenagers for 10 and seven years over the murder of a friend following a dispute over the banned online games PUBG and Free Fire.
Ali Masud Sheikh, judge of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal, delivered the verdict on Thursday (6 August) afternoon.
The two convicted teenagers — aged 15 and 14 — are from Minapara village in Gangni upazila. Because they are minors, they are not being named.
According to the case, on the afternoon of 26 June 2021, the victim called his two friends to his home. He later left on a motorcycle with them, taking his mother’s mobile phone. That evening, a ransom of 1 lakh taka (100,000) was demanded in Hindi, from that phone via an imo number, from the victim’s father, an expatriate in Malaysia. The two teenagers threatened to kill his son if the ransom was not paid, according to the case.
The victim’s father quickly informed the family by phone, and police were also told. Police reached the scene and took the two friends into custody. During questioning, they admitted a dispute among them over the PUBG and Free Fire games, and later told police they had killed the victim. Police recovered his body that night from a field in Manikdia Balia.
Over the incident, the victim’s mother filed a murder case at Gangni police station the same night. After the evidence, the court sentenced one teenager to 10 years in jail and a fine of 10 lakh taka, and the other to seven years and a fine of 5 lakh taka.
The verdict also directed the deputy commissioner to take the necessary steps to realise the fines by auctioning the convicts’ families’ movable and immovable property and to give that money to the victim’s family.
Eleven witnesses testified in the case. Senior advocate Khondaker Abdul Matin conducted the case for the defence, and public prosecutor (PP) Advocate Mostafizur Rahman Tuhin for the state.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report