MUMBAI: Moments before a 14-year-old boy jumped off a high rise building in Mumbai, allegedly as his final "task" in the 'Blue Whale' Suicide online game, he posted his photo on Instagram and called it his "last picture", the police said today.
The boy's mobile phone had been sent to a forensic laboratory as the police investigate whether this is the first death in India connected to 'Blue Whale' suicide challenge.
What is Blue Whale Game?
Games and challenges played via social media are not a new phenomenon. One of the best known challenges was the ALS ice bucket challenge, which raised enough money to support research discovering a new ALS gene. However, not all challenges are quite so constructive.
The latest one, the Blue Whale Challenge, is quite horrific. In this challenge, teens are given increasingly intense tasks to complete for 50 days that leads to self-harm and culminates in suicide by jumping off of a building. Teens challenge each other to play via social media and players are assigned game administrators who elicit their personal information that may later be used against them. Players are required to upload photos of the completed tasks, and if they refuse, game administrators may threaten to harm family members or come and do the task for them. It becomes extremely difficult to say NO.
While unconfirmed, this Russian-originated game has reportedly been responsible for 130 suicide deaths and one of the game’s ringleaders, Philipp Budeikin, has just received a three year sentence after pleading guilty to provoking suicide.
However, no concrete evidence linking the two has been found.
And even though Russia claims to have done everything to curb this online menace and made arrests, perhaps it is too little, too late, since ‘phonies’ have now taken the place of the original curators to carry forward this trend.
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