A teen boy in India has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping and murdering his 12-year-old cousin to pay off the debts the former racked up through online games.

The 16-year-old unidentified boy from Jaipur, a city in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, allegedly strangled his cousin and buried his body near his house. After the murder, the teen sent a message through a fake ID to the boy's father demanding a ransom amount of around $6,600, police said, as reported by The Times Of India.

The victim's father filed a police complaint after the boy went missing from his house on Dec.8. While police were investigating the missing case, the child's father received a message from a social media account demanding ransom. Police then traced the mobile number used for sending the message and found that it belonged to the victim's cousin.

During interrogation, the teenager admitted that he invited the victim home and sent the message demanding ransom using a fake ID after murdering him. Police detained the accused and recovered the victim's body.

The accused boy was reportedly addicted to playing online games which required him to have money in his e-wallet in the form of tokens to get elevated to the next level of the game. The teenager had borrowed money from his neighbors and shopkeepers to buy gaming tokens and was under pressure to pay them off, police said.

An investigation also revealed that the accused and the victim played online games together. The accused boy told police that he had lent money to the victim for buying gaming tokens, which the latter failed to return. An argument about the gaming tokens between the duo reportedly led to the murder. After the murder, the accused had reportedly decided to buy more online gaming tokens using the ransom, Latest LY reported.

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Last month, a 14-year-old boy in India ended his life by jumping into a pond after losing money in online games. Police said that the teen boy, identified as S Akash, from the southern Indian state of Kerala likely died by suicide after he was scared that he would be scolded for losing money in the online games.