Ahmedabad, Mar 14: Ten people, including six college students, were arrested in Gujarat's Rajkot city in the last two days for allegedly playing the PUBG game on their mobile phones despite the police banning it, officials said.
Police Commissioner Manoj Agrawal on March 6 issued a notification banning the online games PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) and 'Momo Challenge' in the city.
Police stations were asked to implement the ban and arrest those who were still playing these games, Rajkot taluka police inspector V S Vanzara said.
"On Tuesday, our teams arrested six college students playing PUBG game on their mobile phones on Kalavad Road and in Jagannath Chowk area," he said.
The same day, Gandhigram police arrested a 25-year-old private firm employee for playing the game on his phone, a release from the police control room said.
On Wednesday, three people were arrested by Rajkot police's special operations group while playing the game on their phones in different areas of the city, another official release said.
All the 10 were booked under Indian Penal Code Section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and later granted bail at the police stations concerned, the police said.
As per the police commissioner's notification, the ban was necessary as these games were leading to violent behaviour among children and youth.
The games were adversely affecting the studies and the overall behaviour, conduct and language of children, the notification said.
Ahmedabad Police Commissioner A K Singh also issued a notification on Wednesday banning both the games in the city, citing similar reasons.
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Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
