MANGALURU: Two days after a 12-year-old boy was found dead, allegedly linked to a dispute over a videogame, police on Tuesday arrested the father of a teenager, a suspect in the case.
Police commissioner N Shashi Kumar said the boy's father tried to hide his son's blood-stained shirt and asked him to not speak about the incident or that he had met the deceased boy, identified as Mohammed Akif.
Police said Akif and the 17-year-old boy, whose identity has been withheld because he is a minor, were friends and used to play the now-proscribed PUBG (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds). During a face-to-face encounter on Saturday night, Akif reportedly lost the bout. In the ensuing scuffle, the 17-year-old boy allegedly hit Akif with a stone. His body was found by a police team 500 metres from his house on Sunday morning.
Kumar said the teenager, who was produced before the Juvenile Justice Board and since sent to an observation home, told them he returned home after the incident and confided in his father. That was when his father asked him to brush the incident under the carpet.