GUWAHATI, Sept 1 - The Kamrup metro administration has constituted a monitoring committee to create awareness and prevent accessibility of the dangerous social media game Blue Whale Challenge.
The committee will comprise the District Development Commissioner, Police Commissioner, ADC (Education), Joint Director (Health), Inspector of Schools, District Social Welfare Officer, District Child Protection Officer, DIPRO and members of three NGOs.
Official sources said the committee would create mass awareness as a preventive measure to keep children and youngsters away from such deadly games. It will also conduct counselling of students in different educational institutions.
Discussions will be held with Internet service providers to develop a control mechanism so that proactive and preventive measures can be planned in advance.
�The situation will be reviewed periodically,� the sources said.
The Blue Whale Challenge targets those who are depressed and turns suicide into a thrilling game. After signing up, the �players� are set tasks for 50 days that include self-harm, watching horror movies alone, and carving a whale on the arm.
Their final task on the 50th day is to kill themselves.
Believed to have originated in Russia, the twisted challenge has till now been linked to more than 130 suicides around the world. The term �Blue Whale� apparently has origin in the phenomenon of beached whales, which is linked with suicide.
Teenagers in many places of the country either killed themselves or were saved before they had jumped off buildings on the instruction of the game administrators. Instances of youngsters harming themselves have been reported from Assam as well.
Guwahati is among three Indian cities to have found a place in the list of top five cities with most Blue Whale game searches globally.
According to Google Trends data, Kolkata witnessed a 100 per cent surge in online searches for the game over the past 12 months and was ranked top. Guwahati was ranked fourth.
