Manoj C Manu, a 16-year-old from Perumkulam in Thiruvananthapuram, was found hanging in his bedroom on July 26. Days after his death, Anu, Manoj’s mother has told Kerala police that she believed her son was playing the ‘Blue Whale Challenge’.
The Blue Whale Challenge is a sinister online game that pushes teens to perform a series of 50 tasks that ends in suicide.
According to Anu, Manoj mentioned the name ‘Blue Whale’ to her in November 2016. At that point, she had made fun of the game that was named after a fish. Later, he had told her that the game had macabre outcomes, she had been unable to dissuade him.
In a chat with TNM’s Saritha Balan, Anu said that she had noticed bruises and other marks, but her son kept saying he had been in accidents on the football ground.
Though the mother says that Manoj mentioned the game and its outcomes to her, Kerala police says there is no evidence to link the suicide with the game. Top police officers have said that there were no marks on the teenager’s body, and certainly no marks in the shape of a whale.
Watch the interview: