Truth Behind the Killer Game ‘Blue Whale’.

The Blue Whale Challenge is said to have claimed over a hundred lives in Russia between 2015 and 2016 alone, however, the recent case of the boy in Mumbai jumping is the first to be linked to the game in India. Though police insists that there remains no links of the suicide to the online game, it has indeed brought forth some uncomfortable questions.

Each passing day, our dependence on technology is gradually but unfaltering rising. And with this, the demarcations between the virtual and the real world is getting blurred, leaving people at a loss to differentiate one from the other. If the situation reads alarming, then the reality is certainly no better. On July 29, A 14-year old boy in Mumbai allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the terrace of his seventh-floor apartment. While the police are yet to deduce the cause that triggered such a drastic step, by many Manpreet Singh’s death is believed to be the consequence of playing an online game. The Blue Whale game or Blue Whale Challenge.

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A suicide game that supposedly originated in Russia, it coerces people into committing suicide. Apparently a group of administrators or a curator gives the participant a set of task, that vary from seemingly innocuous challenges like watching scary videos to self-harming tasks like cut your lip, for a period of 50 days. The game ends with the completion of the final task jumping from a building and killing oneself. In the course of the game, the participants are also required to carve the shape of a blue whale onto their forearms. The Sun reports that the online game has claimed 130 lives between November 2015 to April 2016 in Russia alone. Though, so far, there is no official confirmation of the existence of the game.

The recent case in Mumbai, however, is the first alleged occurrence in India, and that too is being investigated. Nevertheless, the implication of the case has sent shock waves across the country and not without cause. The online game is indubitably and potentially self-harming and menacing, and yet there are children who are supposedly reaching out to the curator to affirm their participation. It might be one big conjecture, but it has certainly raised some uncomfortable questions.

According to experts, teenagers are more vulnerable because the virtual world allows them to act freely without the restrictions prevalent in the real world which seems to give them an adrenaline boost.“Teenagers generally take these risks because they are vulnerable and prone to seek validation. Also, it makes them feel like they are a part of something that is bigger than them,” Samir Parikh, director of the Department of Mental Health & Behavioral Sciences at Fortis Healthcare, New Delhi, told IANS.

“It has been observed that some teenagers have very low self-esteem, and rely significantly on peer approval. For them, the external environment becomes a source of inspiration, which is why they are willing to do anything to (project) a certain image,” said Sameer Malhotra, director, Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket, New Delhi.According to a report in The Sun on July 31, the game has been linked to the deaths of around 130 teenagers across Russia alone.During the course of the game, the participants could be asked to watch horror and psychic movies, cut their hands with blades and needles.