A 20-year-old man addicted to mobile phone gaming allegedly killed his 45-year-old mother in Lucknow after she caught him stealing her jewellery to repay his mounting debts from online betting losses, police said on Monday.
The accused, identified as Nikhil Yadav alias Golu, had tried to mislead the police by claiming that he and his mother had been attacked during a robbery at their home, they said.
He was arrested in Fatehpur district by a joint team of Lucknow's PGI police station, surveillance cell, and the South Zone crime team. The police recovered stolen gold jewellery and other valuables from him.
According to the police, Nikhil, who lived in the Kalli area with his family, had become addicted to online gaming, particularly the "Aviator" game hosted on tirangagamee.games, where he lost substantial sums of money.
To repay the borrowed amount, he had taken multiple app-based loans through platforms such as M Pokket, Flash Wallet, and RAM Fincorp, accumulating thousands in debt, including high-interest and hidden charges, they said.
Unable to meet repayment deadlines, Nikhil resorted to stealing jewellery from his home. On October 3, his mother, Reshma Yadav, caught him red-handed taking her ornaments, leading to a heated altercation during which he allegedly bludgeoned her to death, DCP (Lucknow South) Nipun Agarwal told reporters.
After killing her, Nikhil also ransacked the house to make it look like a robbery. He later phoned his father, concocting a false story that unknown assailants had broken in and attacked both him and his mother, said Agarwal, flanked by Additional DCP Ralapalli Vasanth Kumar and ACP Rishabh Runwal.
The police said the postmortem report confirmed multiple injuries on the victim's body. During interrogation, Nikhil confessed to the murder, saying that he had acted in panic after his mother saw him stealing, according to the police.
"Technical surveillance and CCTV footage helped trace the accused, who initially tried to mislead the police with a fabricated version of the crime," Agarwal said.
The accused has been booked under BNS Sections 103(murder), 238 (causing disappearance of evidence, false statements to shield offender), and 315 (dishonest misappropriation of property belonging to mother), and further legal proceedings are underway.
The deputy police commissioner rewarded the investigating team with Rs 25,000 for successfully cracking the case.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
