A 16-year-old boy from the Kozhikode district in Northern Kerala ended his life by suicide after allegedly receiving a fake message attributed to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The messages directed the receiver to pay a fine for accessing an unauthorised movie website, the police said today, Friday, September 29.
The victim, Adinath, was a Class XI student at a city school. He was found hanging in his apartment in Chevayur, Kozhikode, on the evening of Wednesday, September 27.
In the suicide note recovered from his room, police found indications about him being a victim of online fraud, which drove him to take his own life, said a police officer.
Addressing his mother, the boy wrote in the note that he didn't log into any unauthorised website but watched a movie on a legitimate website on her laptop, the officer added.
"In the laptop, there was a fake message in the name of the NCRB saying that as he accessed an unauthorised website, he had to pay an amount of over Rs 30,000, failing which, it would invite a fine of a huge amount and imprisonment. This seemed to have scared the boy," he told PTI.
Further, there was no evidence that the deceased student opened or browsed any illegal website in the browser history of the laptop when the police checked it, the officer further disclosed.
"We don't know whether it was deleted, but anyway a detailed scientific probe is needed to bring out the truth," he said.
The police have already launched an investigation and would soon collect more details from the boy's parents who shifted to another house following his demise, the officer added.
