Our Bureau
Amherst, MA
A shocking incident has come to the limelight, wherein a first-year student took his own life in March while playing, it is understood, an online game of dares called the “Blue Whale Challenge”, which has also been called the “suicide game”.
The 20-year-old, was a first-year student of the University of Massachusetts and remains unnamed as per his family wishes. He was found dead on March 8.
The “Blue Whale Challenge” is an online game in which participants are given a dare to perform and these dares become increasingly more difficult over 50 steps.
This student from India’s fatal challenge was holding his breath for two minutes, according to official sources. This may be the first instance of a Blue Whale challenge fatality for India.
The Indian government had wanted to ban this game years ago but settled for a more detailed advisory instead. The game is played on social media platforms. It involves an administrator and a participant. The administrator assigns one task a day for a 50-day period. The tasks are innocuous enough in the beginning, but they are progressively harder with self-harm coming in the final stages.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) issued an advisory calling the game an “abetment to suicide”. “The creators seek out their players/victims who are in depression and send them an invitation to join… Players of the challenge can’t stop playing once they’ve started; they are blackmailed and cyberbullied into completing the “game”,” the advisory read.
