Online gaming comes under the scanner

Wife of Madhan Kumar arrested; police intensify efforts to trace the YouTuber, who is still on the run

The dark world of online gaming on YouTube and other social media platforms has come under the police radar. As the law enforcement agency began investigation after complaints on YouTuber Madhan OP poured in, they stumbled upon more than just games. They found several cases of vulgar abuse and targeted abuse against women among several gamers during live streams. City Police Commissioner Shankar Jiwal said efforts had been intensified to trace Madan, who was on the run. M. Madan Kumar alias Madhan OP, 29, and his wife Krithika, 26, are engineering graduates and had completed their Electronics and Communications Engineering course. He is a native of Dadagapatti, Salem, and briefly ran an eatery in Ambattur. Attracted to gaming content on YouTube, he began a channel in 2019 to showcase his skills in video games, including PUBG, and uploaded strategy guides. The games were live streamed on his YouTube channel. Even after the Central government banned PUBG, he used virtual private networks (VPNs) to continue accessing the game, and live streamed videos through his channel. While chatting with players, he pretended to be an affluent person with a charitable disposition, remaining off-screen throughout the streams. The police said his viewers were between ages 13 and 25.