Blue whale? Boy ends his life

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, September 25

A 16-year-old boy hung himself to death on Saturday at his Sector 4 residence in Panchkula. His family members have blamed the Blue Whale Challenge for their son’s death. This is the first case of suspected blue whale death in the tricity.

The family members of Karan Thakur, a student of DAV School in Sector 8, Chandigarh, recovered some drawings purportedly made by Karan in his notebook with text that read “I should just die” and “I don’t deserve to live”.

According to Karan's mother Rajni Thakur, he got addicted to the game and they had to take him to a psychiatrist at the General Hospital, Sector 6, Panchkula, but due to non-availability of the doctor on that day, they returned home and decided to go some other day, she said. 

In his maths notebook, which was found on Sunday when the maternal uncle of Karan, Rajiv Thakur, was checking his school bag, Karan had drawn scenes of a boy jumping off a cliff, drowning in water, cutting his wrist, lying in front of a train and a speeding car, and hanging from a ceiling fan. He chose death by hanging. The family handed over the notebook to the police today. 

His last words beneath these drawings were "I don’t deserve to live", "No one cares for me", "No one loves me", "They just use me" and "I should just die".

Karan was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his first floor room on Saturday morning. On Sunday, when the family was checking Karan’s room, they found his maths notebook. 

Karan’s father Davinder Thakur said they still could not believe that their son died because of an online game. 

Strangulation cause of death: Postmortem report 

Panchkula Police Commissioner AS Chawla said in the postmortem report the cause of the death was strangulation. There were no marks of a blue whale on his wrist. The mother had informed that there was only a slight mark on his wrist but that too was old, he said. 

5 students under observation 

The Panchkula police have identified at least five of his friends, who could also be addicted to the blue whale game. Police Commissioner AS Chawla said his team had gone to DAV School in Chandigarh and met the school principal and counsellor. They informed the police that they had identified some students who were suspected to be addicted to the online game and had started their counselling. The police have also identified one boy from Chandigarh and one girl from Panchkula. The Chandigarh boy’s SIM was issued on a fake address and they have informed the Chandigarh Police about it. Meanwhile, they have seized the Panchkula girl’s phone with the consent of her mother and have told her to keep an eye on her daughter, he said. 

Police trying to retrieve data from mobile

The police have seized Karan’s mobile and laptop and are trying to retrieve the data. Police Commissioner AS Chawla said his mother told us that Karan had informed them a few days ago that he deleted Instagram and WhatsApp because of his exams. 

However, the police are suspecting the deleted apps could be the online game. Experts were trying to retrieve the data, he said. 

The police have also seized the notebook in which he had made the drawings. 

Addicted to games

Karan’s father Davinder Thakur blamed the blue whale game for driving his son to suicide, saying the drawings he had made were identical to those by other victims of this game. He claimed that his son was addicted to mobile games and would play them at night as well.

Sent hate messages to friend 

The victim’s cousin, Abhishek, said he had read that the administrator of the blue whale game asks the player to send hate messages to a friend. “He did that by sending hate messages to his close friend. He also watched some videos at 4 am, which is also one of the blue whale tasks.”

He had even asked for a horror movie around 10 days ago and changed his WhatsApp display picture and status into a horrific one, one of his relatives said.