The suicide of a 19-year-old college student named J.Vickey near Vilacheri in Madurai district has prompted an investigation into whether his death was caused by the blue whale challenge. This suspicion came to fore, after police found the image of a blue whale on his left fore arm.
Vickey, who was a second year student of commerce in a city college was found hanging at his residence in Mottamalai.
His body was discovered at 4.15 pm on Wednesday. The younger son of a baker, he had bought a mobile phone only recently.
The Blue Whale Challenge that reportedly involves 50 challenges ends with the player jumping off a building.
Though Vickey had hanged himself to death, police are probing the Blue Whale angle due to a tattoo of a blue whale carved with a sharp object on his fore arm and a note that was found.
"We suspect the boy could have been playing the game. Further investigation is underway in the case," said Madurai SP Manivannan. He also confirmed that an image of a blue whale was found on the boy's body.
There was also reportedly a sheet of paper near him on which it was scribbled that 'the blue whale challenge is not a game and is dangerous, once you start you cannot escape.'
The Blue Whale Challenge is a morbid social media ‘game’ which targets vulnerable teens and pushes them to inflict self-harm and ultimately commit suicide. The challenge involves many tasks, which are given by an administrator or curator, which have to be completed one by one.
After the sinister 'game' was suspected to have claimed three lives in India the Indian government on August 15 directed Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Microsoft and Yahoo to remove links to the Blue Whale challenge immediately.