Boy writes about game in answer sheet, rescued

BHOPAL: A Class 10 student was rescued in Madhya Pradesh’s Rajgarh district after he wrote on his answer sheet during an examination that he had reached the last level of the Blue Whale Challenge and was being encouraged to commit suicide.

The student of Utkarsh School in Khilchipur, around 160km from Bhopal, wrote in his San- skrit paper that he had completed the 49th stage and was being warned his parents would be killed if he failed to finish.

“I am trapped in the game, which I have been playing for the last two months. I am now in the final stage and they are telling me to commit suicide ,” the boy wrote in his answer sheet.

The Sanskrit teacher, Hemlata Sringi, informed the school, district administration, and his parents about the boy.

The Blue Whale Challenge, reportedly created by a former convict in Russia, is said to provoke players to indulge in daring, self-destructive tasks, which must be filmed and shared as “proof”, for 50 days before finally taking the “winning” step of killing themselves. Players also carve a whale-like figure on their arms.

Sub-divisional magistrate Praveen Prajapati said the boy is in a state of shock but was coun- selled with the help of trained counsellors from the women and child welfare department.

The boy has promised he will not play the game, Prajapati added. A 17-year-old girl was also rescued in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur after she allegedly tried to jump into a lake as part of the game and told police if she didn’t complete the challenge her mother and rest of her family could come to harm.

In another incident, a firstyear management student at Chakravarti Rajgopalachari Institute of Management (CRIM) in Bhopal informed his friends on social media that he was playing the game after completing the first stage.

“I have ‘acquired’ the first stage in the game,” he wrote on a Whatsapp group. His friends immediately alerted the college administration, who counselled him, and the boy has promised to discontinue the game, authorities said.