In a shocking revelation, a 16-year-old boy from Vilappilsala near Kerala capital Thiruvananthapuram committed suicide last month in a suspected case of addiction to the online killer game, Blue Whale Challenge.
As per reports, Manoj, a Plus 1 student, had committed suicide by hanging on July 26, nine months allegedly after he had started playing the game. His mother, Anu, told the media that there were reasons to suspect that Manoj could have been a victim of the killer game. The police have started a probe into the incident on the basis of a complaint from the boy’s parents.
Manoj’s relatives have handed over the phone, in which he used to ‘play’ the game, to the police which will now be subjected to examination by the department’s Cyber Cell. The Blue Whale Challenge game installed in Manoj’s phone had been deleted from the mobile before his death. The police on Tuesday recorded the statements of Manoj’s relatives.
Anu said that Manoj had started playing the killer game in November last and that she had noticed big changes in his behaviour. She said Manoj could have downloaded Blue Whale Challenge last November, several months before Keralites had become aware of the existence of such an online killer game.
“He told me some months ago that there was a game named Blue Whale. I taunted him by asking him whether there would be any game with such a name but he explained that those who played it would either commit murder or suicide eventually. Otherwise, the player would become mad, he said. I asked him not to play it,” the mother told a TV channel.
Since then, Manoj had started behaving strangely, she said. He would jump into river though he never learned swimming, go to the beach all alone though he was not in the habit of going anywhere alone, go to a cemetery at night and undertake long journeys without telling the family, according to the mother.
“He had even once wounded himself with a divider needle. As he could not do it by himself he had made a friend do it for him. He had asked me once whether I would feel sad if he died but I told him not to speak like that. Then he said I shouldn’t feel sad and asked me to give the love I had for him to his sister,” the mother said.
Police officials in Thiruvananthapuram said the threat of Blue Whale Challenge was real in the State but added that it was yet to be confirmed whether Manoj’s death could have been linked to the game. They said an awareness drive had become inevitable in the context. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had on August 12 urged the Centre to ban the online game.