The twin brothers from Mumbai now residing in Maharashtra, Ashish and Amar Vitthal, have decided to celebrate Holika Dahan by burning a PUBG Mobile effigy. Holika Dahan is the event during which Indian people get rid of evil stuff by burning them. Obviously, their action is to attract more attention to how negatively impactful the game is, as well as to discourage others to play the game.
Speaking to the Asian News International channel – ANI, the Vitthal brothers stated, “PUBG must be banned. Parents tell us children play PUBG all day. They appreciate us for the concept." Additionally, they emphasized, "People are turning violent by playing PUBG, children are not focusing on studies. So, we came up with this concept. Earlier we had created awareness about noise pollution, demonetization etc. We will burn this effigy during ‘Holika Dahan’. We want to spread a social message.”
The game’s reputation has skyrocketed since last year and more and more players are becoming too addicted to it. Therefore, PUBG itself has been announced forbidden is various areas across the country, notably in certain cities of Gujarat. Parents from all over India have been calling for help, contacting the authorities to give out a solution before everything has gone too far.
Meanwhile, the community of gamers disagreed with the ban, arguing that there are more worth-banning applications around such as Tik Tok, which has been accused of child sexual exploitation. Besides, they pointed out activities that will certainly cause bad influence like alcohol consumption and smoking have not been banned yet. Therefore, the restriction on PUBG is completely unreasonable.
Asheeta Regidi, whose expertise is in cyber law, noted that the shortage of regulation in gaming in India indicates that the government is acting randomly without a plan. Moreover, the act of banning games only shows their unstructured manner. Instead, to face ongoing problems and mitigate those issues, proper guidelines and regulation should be enforced.