Blue Whale Challenge: 16-year-old boy commits suicide in Panchkula, mother says he was addicted

Blue Whale Challenge: The parents found blue whale game installed in his phone when they checked his belongings after performing his last rites on Saturday. (Source: Representational)

A 16-YEAR-OLD boy allegedly committed suicide by hanging from the ceiling fan of his house in Sector 4 on Saturday morning, apparently after falling prey to the deadly Blue Whale game. The Blue Whale link came to light a day after the suicide, on Sunday, when a family member found a notebook with drawings in the boy’s hand that pointed to him thinking about suicide. The police came to know about it on Monday morning.

The parents of the victim, Karan Thakur, a student of standard X of DAV Senior Secondary School in Sector 8, Chandigarh, said that they had found Blue Whale diagrams, depicting its ‘tasks’, drawn in the victim’s hand in his Maths notebook.

Panchkula Commissioner of Police A S Chawla said that the WhatsApp account and Instagram have been deleted from the child’s mobile phone but “there are vital clues” indicative of the victim playing the Blue Whale game.

Five illustrations of the Blue Whale’s ‘winning task’, purportedly made by the victim were found in the notebook. The police have taken the notebook and the boy’s phone for investigation.

Blue Whale Challenge: Drawings found in Karan’s notebook that perhaps link to the Blue Whale Challenge game.

The drawings showed a boy jumping from a building, a boy hanging from ceiling fan, ending life on a railway track, standing in front of a car and slitting the wrist.

Besides them, he had written the following sentences: I should just die; I don’t deserve to live; Nobody likes me; Nobody loves me; No one cares whether I live or die; They just use me.

His parents said on Monday that Karan had asked to be taken to a doctor “as he was addicted to a game”, which the parents said were initial symptoms that should have alerted them to the impending tragedy. Karan had also warned his cousin Rahul not to play the Blue Whale game.

According to the police, on Saturday morning, the victim’s parents, Devinder Thakur and Rajni Thakur, had gone to the Sector 6 general hospital for a routine check-up for diabetes while his younger brother Harsh Thakur had gone to school. Karan was at home. When they returned home on the first floor of their family house, it was locked from inside. Believing him to be asleep, they tried ringing the bell and knocking on the door, but there was no response.

Read | Police identify victim’s 5 friends who play Blue Whale, alert parents

“I then went to the first floor of the neighbour’s house to jump into our house (both are joined). When I entered through Karan’s room, I was shocked to see him hanging from the ceiling fan. He had used his mother’s dupatta,” said Devinder Thakur, a stock trader.

Karan was rushed to the Panchkula Sector 6 general hospital where he was declared brought dead.

Finding a cut on his left wrist and recalling the fact that he had told his parents about wanting to see a psychiatrist, maternal uncle Rajiv Thakur, who rushed to Panchkula from Una, got suspicious. “Fearing that he may have fallen victim to the Blue Whale, it was his Maamaji who started searching his notebooks and found all these drawings on the last page of his maths notebook,” said Timsi Thakur, the victim’s aunt.

“He made these tasks, probably these were the options one could opt for….and he chose to hang from the ceiling fan,” said his weeping father. The couple have a younger son who is a class 8 student.

A WhatsApp display picture (DP) on the number of the victim stated: Don’t get to close..It’s dark inside. It’s where my demons hide….

The victim’s cousin Rahul told Chandigarh Newsline, “A fortnight ago, he warned me never to play the Blue Whale game. I thought he was just talking in a routine manner, the way my mother cautioned me. He also asked for CD of a horror movie, as he was fond of watching those. I did not sense it.”

A team of Panchkula police took the mobile phone and notebook of the victim in custody to investigate from where he got the link and if he had forwarded it to any of his classmates.