Centre asks online giants to delete Blue Whale links

The Centre has directed social media and internet majors such as Google, Facebook and WhatsApp to delete links to the online game, Blue Whale Challenge, which has provoked more than a hundred participants across the globe to kill themselves.

The game's proponent should be reported to law enforcement agencies, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said in a letter dated August 11 to the online giants, including Instagram, Microsoft and Yahoo.

"Instances of children committing suicide while playing Blue Whale Challenge have been reported in India... You are requested to ensure that any such link of this game in its own name or similar game is immediately removed from your platform," the ministry's letter states, in keeping with instructions from Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

DNA has a copy of the letter, which has been shared with the ministries of home affairs and women and child development.

"It is understood that an administrator of the game uses social media platform to invite/incite children to play this game, which may eventually lead them to take extreme steps for self-inflicting injuries including suicide," the letter states.

The Blue Whale challenge is reportedly a suicide game in which the player is dared to complete certain tasks over a period of 50 days. The tasks get progressively dangerous, culminating in something suicidal. The player is asked to share photos after finishing the challenge.

The letter comes after Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi urged Prasad and Home Minister Rajnath Singh to ban the online game.

"Maneka Gandhi has taken cognisance of the self-destructive Blue Whale challenge that has claimed the lives of over 100 youngsters," her ministry had tweeted on Monday.

"Gandhi has requested that the challenge be removed from social media by suitable intervention."

DEADLY DARES

• On July 26, a 16-year-old boy, Manoj Manu, from Perumkulam in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram, hanged himself. His mother suspects he was completing the Blue Whale Challenge.