Police halts runaway girl’s obsession for Taxi Driver 2 game

By Rohan Agarwal

New Delhi, July 21 (IANS) A schoolgirl, who went missing from Pant Nagar in Uttarakhand on July 1, allegedly inspired by the mobile game Taxi Driver 2, has returned home after roaming around several cities for a fortnight.

Her "adventure" ended in Delhi, when a police patrol spotted her loitering in Kamla Market area and asked her about her whereabouts. The girl first claimed that she was there to meet her brother who was a medical student at the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), but later gave away her real story.

The police found her carrying a piece of paper with a phone number written on it.
The phone number was traced back to her school from where the police learnt that she had been missing for 17 days. The police then got in touch with her family, who arrived in Delhi to take her back.

According to police officials, the girl was hooked to Taxi Driver 2 -- a South Korean 3D mobile driving game in which the players get behind the wheels of a taxi and race their way with their clients through a huge metropolis -- ever since she started playing it on her mother's mobile phone.

Since July 1 when she left Pant Nagar with Rs 14,000 in her pocket, she had travelled to Rishikesh, Haridwar, Udaipur, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and even Pune. Police said the girl would pick random destinations and was on the move 24x7, much like the cabbies in Taxi Driver 2. She would travel by the night and explore the cities during the day.

Though her family refused to share their ordeal, a friend of the girl told IANS that she was an introvert and spent much of her time playing the video game.

"Introverted teenagers must be given attention by the parents. They should be given more exposure to the real world than the virtual world," said Dr. Nimesh Desai, Director, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences.

(Rohan Agarwal can be contacted at Rohan.a@ians.in )