Has the world’s most scary suicide game hit India?

The Blue Whale Challenge is an online game that culminates in a suicide pact. Players are given series of 50 tasks, the final task being committing suicide.

The game is said to have originated in Russia four years ago but the suicide of a Class 9 student in Mumbai seems to be the first case in India.

According to the police, the teenager jumped off the fifth floor of his apartment building in suburban Andheri at around 5pm on Saturday.

“The teenager’s friends were chatting on social media groups about his death being linked to the Blue Whale online suicide challenge game. We were told that he informed a friend that he would not come to school on Monday because of the Blue Whale pact. But, we are yet to examine his mobile phone and social media groups where he was active,” a senior police official said.

According to a youngster who follows the game on social media, the challenge is overseen by a curator to whom the player must also send photographic proofs.

The challenges include ‘Carve with a razor “f57” on your hand, send a photo to the curator’, ‘Wake up at 4.20 am and watch psychedelic and scary videos that curator sends you.’, ‘Cut your arm with a razor along your veins, but not too deep, only 3 cuts, send a photo to the curator’, ‘Watch psychedelic and horror videos all day’ and so on.

“I downloaded the game out of curiosity and the first challenge asks you to harm yourself. There is someone who ensures that you are completing all the tasks and it got scary for me. I uninstalled it immediately. But there are thousands of teenagers from around the world are taking the challenge. They are an easy target to be manipulated and these teens go to any extent to prove their worth,” says Arun S., a videogame and technology enthusiast.