Blue Whale: A reported suicide game (Source: Twitter)
Criminal Investigation Department saved a student of technology from committing suicide that had crossed eight levels of blue whale online dare game by counseling him at the right time. After CID received information about this student, one of the officer started having a video chat with the boy, slowly through counseling, cyber department officials made him understand that he was into a dangerous path and the boy was eventually saved from committing suicide.
As a precautionary measure to save people from committing suicide in the name of playing online dare game, the Criminal Investigation Department has now initiated an awareness campaign on social media. A 1.13 minute of video has been uploaded on CID’s facebook page to aware teenager who are most vulnerable target of this dangerous game.
According to CID sources, a few days back CID had posted an awareness message regarding blue whale game on their face book page. Following the post registrar of BB Institute of Technology contacted an officer of CID cyber cell over phone. He informed him that suspicious gesture of a student was noticed by the college authority. After which the officials managed to take details of the students and on condition of keeping it confidential his parents were taken into confidence too. The officials then befriended the student and started speaking to him. A cyber official started guiding him and did his counseling. With the help of the registrar, he spoke to the boy introducing himself as a cyber friend. Finally, the boy admitted that he was playing the Blue Whale game and had already reached 8th level. The student was later convinced that it was not a game rather a call of death.
“Over video our officials spoke to him. The boy admitted that he was playing blue whale game and had crossed 8th level. Our officials spoke to him and convinced him that he was not playing a game but was moving towards his death. He was convinced and saved. To aware people our department have uploaded guidelines related to this game on our you tube channel”, said DIG (CID-operations) Nishat Parvez.
As per one cyber official, the game is also famous with other names like ‘A silent house’, ‘A sea of whales’ and ‘wake up at 4.20’. In such games the player are assigned with fifty tasks for fifty days. On 29th day the player is asked to sketch a blue whale or any other mark on his hand with blade. The game was first developed in Russia.
This is not the first time that Blue Whale challenge victim have come to light in West Bengal. On August 13, a boy from West Mednipore had committed suicide. It was suspected that his suicide was a part of the daring task assigned while playing blue whale games. The boy Ankan Dey had choked himself to death by covering his head with a plastic bag. His family was informed by his friends that he was playing blue whale games. Later, another boy namely Raunak Sinha had confessed of completing three stages of blue whale game in West Mednipore district. However, with the help of his friends he was saved and he stopped playing the game.
“We are running a campaign in school to alert students. Actually a student spends maximum time in school and they get to hear about online games, series in schools only. It is important to interact with students of school to stop the menace from spreading further”, said an official of West Mednipore district. Cyber experts have advised parents to monitor the behavior of their kids so that they don’t fall into the trap of these dangerous games.
“ The game is designed in such a way that it begins with easy task but different one. Now when a person is able to complete it , he/she gets motivated for more challenges and thus they end up taking dangerous steps. Once someone starts playing this game they keep reminding you of the task assigned and even if someone wants to avoid they get trapped. This is extremely dangerous, it’s a responsibility of parents too to be aware of what their children are upto”, added another official.
