Blue Whale Continues To Wreak Havoc Across India; 2 More Suicides; Woman Rescued In Puducherry 

Less than a week since a Puducherry University student hanging himself in the campus after taking up the Blue Whale Challenge, two new cases have come out from the Union Territory on Sunday.

The curiosity about the nefarious Blue Whale Challenge is spreading across India. People searching for Blue Whale on Google are increasing by the day and the number of searches remains highest from India.

It's not been even a week since the news of a Madurai teenager committing suicide by hanging himself after taking up the Blue Whale Challenge made national headlines. And less than two days since the news of a Puducherry University student hanging himself in the campus allegedly after taking up the challenge, two new cases have come out from Puducherry itself. But the good news is that the victims have been rescued.

Woman Trapped In The Death Game Rescued

Priya, a 21-year-old from Uppalam, works with a nationalised bank. On Sunday morning, Priya contacted one of her friends, said that she doesn't know where she was, and disconnected the call abruptly. Her friend panicked and informed the police who immediately sent search parties across the Union Territory.

One of the search parties found Priya sitting alone near the beach and rescued her. On analysing her phone, the cops were shocked to see that Priya had taken up the Blue Whale Challenge. Priya's parents were alerted about her involvement in the challenge. The police also promised that she could undergo counselling any time she chooses to.

Priya's colleagues, who described her as a jovial person, said that over the past few days she came across as extremely depressed and said that they even worried that she could harm herself.

The police confiscated Priya's phone for further analysis and requested people to be more alert about what their children are up to.

In another incident, a teenager shared a video on Facebook, talking about how the Blue Whale Challenge trapped him and sought help and suggestions from people to pull himself out of it.

In the video, he says he regrets "downloading" the "game". "Three months ago, I got a link to the Blue Whale Challenge through Facebook. It asked me to log in with a Facebook or a Google account and I went ahead with my Facebook ID thinking it is a genuine site but I got trapped by hackers," he says in the video.

He said some Jonty John sent him the link to the challenge, that his account got hacked and that the hackers have all his information and requested people not to ask him about the Blue Whale Challenge because that is what got him into the trap. He said Jonty John doesn't know Tamil and that's the reason he chose to speak in Tamil in the video.

This case, however, cannot be linked to the Blue Whale Challenge as of yet. The teen said he "downloaded" the "game". The Blue Whale Challenge is not an application or a game that it can be "downloaded" from app stores. To take up the Blue Whale Challenge, you don't have to "login" to any website either.

The boy could have gotten scammed by some hackers who managed to hack into his account using the details they received when he logged into the website they wanted him to. They could be possibly blackmailing him too, but there is no solid connection with the Blue Whale Challenge.

He could just be an attention-seeking youngster who tried to read up about the Blue Whale Challenge, got misinformed, and used those information in his video.

17-Year-Old Student Commits Suicide In Madhya Pradesh

A 17-year-old student, suspected to be a victim of the killer Blue Whale game, committed ‘suicide’ by throwing himself before a running train in the district headquarters town of Damoh in Madhya Pradesh, police said on Sunday .

The body of Satwik Pandey, a student of class XI at the local school here, was found on the railway tracks in Damoh town on Sunday morning, the investigating officer said.

This probably could be the first death caused by the Blue Whale Challenge in MP.

According to the police, Satwik was found missing from his home on Saturday evening.

Later, his father, Sanjay Pandey, filed a missing complaint at the local police station.

“Prima facie it appears a case of suicide. However, we have not yet recovered any suicide note. Probe is on into the incident,” the police officer said.

Police suspected that it might be a case of suicide abetted by the Blue Whale challenge.

“Satwik had been seen engrossed with his cell phone for the last several days. He used to remain tense also. He was telling his friends that he had little time with him and he was going far away from them,” the police said quoting Satwik’s friends and kin. A couple of weeks ago, a student in an elite private school in district headquarters town of Indore in MP, attempted suicide by jumping from his school building.

The boy was at the final and 50th level in the Blue Whale challenge and was prompted to commit suicide by jumping from his school building.

One of the school’s teacher had saved him from jumping from the fourth floor of the school.

Kerala Teen's Suicide Linked To 'Blue Whale' Challenge

Parents of a 16-year-old boy who committed suicide on July 26, raised doubts on Tuesday that it was due to the Blue Whale Challenge game that their son ended his life.

Manoj, a native of Vilappilsala in Trivandrum committed suicide by hanging himself at his residence.

On Tuesday, the Class 11 student's mother informed the police that she suspected her son committed suicide as he was playing the Blue Whale Challenge.

According to reports, the boy's mother told a media channel that her son had downloaded the game in November 2016.

"He said in the last stage of the game, one should either commit suicide or murder someone. I got scared after hearing it and asked my son not to play the game. My son had once hurt himself using a compass and jumped into a river though he did not know how to swim. He was later rescued. Before he took the extreme step, my son had deleted the game from his mobile phone," the mother said.

Kerala Police had registered a case of unnatural death then and concluded it to be personal problem.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology took a strict measure against the deadly online game, Blue whale Challenge and asked social media giants like Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Microsoft and Yahoo to immediately remove all the links relating to the game.

"Instances of children committing suicide while Blue Whale Challenge have been reported in India...You are hereby requested to ensure that any such link of this deadly game in its own name or similar game is immediately removed from your platform," stated the ministry, in a letter, to the internet majors.

Taking the cognizance of the recent deaths in Mumbai and West Bengal, the ministry said the proponent of Blue Whale Challenge should be reported to law enforcement agencies.

On August 14, a series of tweets were put out by Ministry of Child and Development stating that Maneka Gandhi has taken up the matter with Home Minister Rajnath Singh and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

On August 12, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had urged the Centre to take immediate steps to ban the Blue Whale Challenge in the country "to save precious lives".

The deadly online 'Blue Whale Challenge' game, however is reportedly a suicide game that challenges players for over 50 days, demanding them to complete tasks given by an anonymous controller.