A 14-year-old teenage boy in Jabalpur district, Madhya Praseh, India, reportedly killed himself after his father failed to recharge his mobile phone data plan.
On Monday, the boy’s family was shocked after finding him hanging dead from a ceiling fan inside their home. His parents and relatives spent some time looking for him before the discovery since they did not see him for several hours.
According to City Superintendent of Police (CSP) Alok Sharma, a preliminary investigation into the incident revealed that the boy's father, who used to work as a laborer, had been struggling with financial difficulties for the past several months.
The boy, who was reportedly addicted to playing video games on his mobile phone, recently requested his father to recharge the data plan for his device. However, the father failed to recharge the teen's mobile phone data pack for the past couple of days.
Upset over the situation, the boy decided to kill himself while inside their home, NDTV reported.
In a similar but unrelated incident, a teenage boy in Goa, India, allegedly killed himself after the screen of his mobile phone last October.
Rohit Varak, a 16-year-old boy, was using the only smartphone shared by his family of six to attend online classes. When the screen broke after Varak accidentally dropped it, his father did not have enough money to fix it.
Without the device, Varak and his 12-year-old younger brother Gyanu could not attend their online classes, as per the Independent.
According to Varak's elder sister Neha Varak, it would have cost around $39 (3,000 Indian Rupees) to repair the phone. Varak's father used to work as a driver of a private bus, and the entire family survived on a single income brought in by him.
According to the victim's uncle Bhago Varak, the family's overall income had become very low since the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Bhago added that even though the family members earned about $6 (500 Indian Rupees) a day, the amount was not enough to meet their daily expenses.
Varak reportedly killed himself because he was feeling helpless after their phone broke.