Chennai:Â A car driver, who was addicted to online rummy games and robbed his former employer to settle his losses, has been arrested.
The 36-year-old man, along with his friend, broke open the house of the 68-year-old Indumathi who was living alone in Sheshadripuram street in Velachery, Chennai and robbed her of jewels and other valuables at knifepoint.
The woman registered a complaint with the Velachery police station that she was robbed by two masked men on July 30.
After investigation, police team found that the two masked men had entered her home but they could not identify the duo. However, on a detailed investigation of CCTV visuals throughout the route, police could gather the information that the men were not wearing masks at a distance and when the visuals were shown to the elderly woman, she immediately identified on of them as her former driver, Ismail.
The police team reached Ismail's residence but he had already left the place and after a prolonged investigation could nab him from a hideout on the outskirts of Chennai on Friday. On Ismail's information, police nabbed his accomplice, Abdul Salam (35) whom he had befriended from a liquor shop in the city.
Ismael on interrogation told the police that he was addicted to online rummy and that he had robbed the woman to fund his online rummy games as well as to settle the old debts that he incurred while playing the game.
Even after the Tamil Nadu government constituted a commission headed by retired Justice Chandru to study the online game menace, no action has come up.
Several political parties, including the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and the BJP, had taken up the issue of banning online rummy games but the government is yet to take an action.
Many people have lost their lives by playing online rummy games and many families were broken due to the addiction to this game.
PMK state president Anbumani Ramadoss in a statement on Saturday called for the immediate banning of online rummy games to prevent more suicides.
—IANS