Class X boy found dead, involvement of notorious Blue Whale game suspected

Kolkata: Mystery shrouds the death of a 15-year-old boy hailing from Anandapur village in West Midnapore. There have been allegations that the youth might be the first victim of the infamous Blue Whale game in Bengal. The body of Ankan Dey, a Class X student was recovered with his face wrapped in a plastic sheet and a towel tied around his neck from the bathroom of his house on Saturday. There were no other injury marks on his body.

According to family members, the teenager went to take a bath on Saturday morning. When he did not come out even after half-an-hour, his mother Sampa informed the matter to her husband Gopinath. Both of them knocked on the bathroom door several times but received no response.

They, along with some other family members, broke open the door to find Ankan's motionless body lying on the floor.

The victim's cousin Subhra Dey Sengupta said that her brother was very fond of online games. One of the victim's school friend said that Ankan played the Blue Whale game and had even told some of them that he would teach them the game.

"We are exploring all angles in the case. It's too early to ascertain the cause of death," a senior police official of the district said.

The victim's father was associated with cable business and also owned a television and computer repairing shop. Ankan was playing some games on the computer in the shop before going to the bathroom. Sleuths from Anandapur police station have seized the computer from his father's shop and his mobile phone for forensic tests to verify such claims. Ankan was a student of Anandapur High School.

This is the third reported incident regarding the Blue Whale Challenge in India in the past few weeks. A Class VII kid from Indore tried to commit suicide but was stopped and the incident is being linked to Blue Whale. A Mumbai teen also jumped to death on August 1 allegedly due to the Blue Whale Challenge.

The game allegedly consists of a series of tasks assigned to players by administrators during a 50-day period, with the final challenge requiring the player to commit suicide. The game asks the player to draw a whale on a piece of paper, then carve a whale figure on their body, and then gives other tasks such as watching horror movies alone etc. The tasks also include the final challenge to commit suicide.

The game has claimed the lives of around 150 people in Europe and Russia so far.