Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the Union information and technology ministry to take a decision on the representation seeking imposition of ban on mobile game Player Unknown’s Battle Grounds (PUBG) which “teaches only violence to children by shooting and kill the opponents/targets”.

These directions have been given while disposing of the PIL filed by advocate H C Arora seeking a ban on the mobile game which is causing “violence addiction among children and adversely affecting their physical and mental development, thereby destroying the new generation, particularly school-going children”.

The PIL mentioned that the game hampers the mental development of children who remain glued to mobile phones for hours together and become violent if forced to give up the game.

It was submitted that just like addiction to drugs, which has destroyed the youth of our country, particularly in states like Punjab, PUBG too has the potential to mar the coming generation — schoolgoers who are losing interest in studies due to the game.

It added that the parents of such children are helpless. If they insist their kids on shunning the game, the latter become highly aggressive and get depressed too because of the addiction to playing PUBG. As an inevitable result, in many cases the conflict is affecting the mental health of parents too.