Blue Whale challenge: You can enter but not leave, says teen before suicide

Police in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai said on Thursday they are investigating the contact numbers on the mobile phone of the 19-year-old college student, who committed suicide after playing the deadly Blue Whale challenge, and the members of a WhatsApp group he was a part of.

J Vighnesh, a second year BCom student in Mannar Thirumalai Naicker College, was found hanging from a ceiling fan on Wednesday by his father J Jayamani. The boy used his mother’s saree to hang himself.

Madurai SP Manivannan confirmed Blue Whale challenge was the cause of the suicide after a tattoo of a whale, made using a sharp object, was found on his left hand. Participants of the game have to complete a series of dangerous self-harming challenges over a period of 50 days and “win” the game by committing suicide.

“We are searching the cell phone of Vighnesh and will try and detect the other members in the group as mentioned by his mother. The players will try and etch a whale picture on their arm and this is the sure shot indication of impending danger to the life of the teenagers,” Manivannan said.

“At present, there is a WhatsApp group that we are trying to investigate,” the Madurai SP said.

The officer told the media the police will try and spread awareness about the game, which mostly targets teenagers and young children, and counsel young students at their homes, schools and colleges.

Madurai collector Veera Raghava Rao said preliminary investigation points that Blue Whale game was behind the suicide.

“We will form a special cell to spread awareness in schools and colleges and to youth and parents and also coordinate with other states to devise ways and means to check this menace,” Rao added.

Vighnesh’s wailing mother told a private television channel she discovered strange marks on his body and asked him about it. “It is nothing Amma, nothing will happen to me, my son told me when I asked him about this,” she said.

She said she came to know two or three days ago that her son was engaged in the deadly internet game. She added some 75 children were in the chain along with her son.

“I plead with the government to somehow save these children. No mother should face the misfortune of losing a child and go through the trauma,” she said.

This is the latest in a string of cases reported from across India of deaths or suicide attempts linked to the online game, first developed in Russia. The game has claimed hundreds of lives across the globe.

“Blue whale is not a game but disaster,” Vighnesh said in a suicide note that was found on Wednesday. “You can enter it, but cannot exit the game,” the note said.

source--http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/blue-whale-challenge-once-you-enter-you-can-never-exit-wrote-madurai-teen-before-committing-suicide/story-LfbSgBrsLAOuKd0mCCzLDK.html