Thursday, August 31, 2017
Blue Whale Challenge hits Chennai: Madurai teen hangs himself, leaves note saying 'you can't exit once you enter'
A college student committed suicide by hanging himself after he reportedly took up the Blue Whale Challenge.
Pramod Madhav | Edited by Isha Gupta and Vivek Surendran
August 31, 2017 | UPDATED 02:44 IST
HIGHLIGHTS
1
A 19-year-old college student committed suicide by hanging himself.
2
Body had an image of whale carved on the forearm.
3
Friends saw him attempting Blue Whale Challenge on his phone.
The Blue Whale Challenge has seemingly claimed a life in Tamil Nadu's Madurai. A 19-year-old college student from Thirumangalam -- Vignesh -- committed suicide by hanging himself on Wednesday. Vignesh was a second year student at Mannar College in Madurai. He was found hanging around 4:15 pm.
Police confirmed the image of a whale carved on Vignesh's left forearm with a blade and the words "Blue Whale" were written beneath it.
A note was also recovered from the spot which said, "Blue Whale- This is not a game but danger. Once you enter, you can never exit".
Vignesh's friends told the police that they saw him attempting the Blue Whale Challenge on his phone. Since there are no applications or website for the challenge, friends would have meant they saw Vignesh using his phone more than usual because the challenge involves conversing with a curator over messages, or sometimes, calls.
Further investigation is underway in the case.
Tamil Nadu Police had recently released a circular asking parents to keep an eye for children attempting the Blue Whale Challenge on the computer or their phones and to monitor their behaviour.
WHAT THE BLUE WHALE CHALLENGE IS
The Blue Whale Challenge -- a dare-based "game" that requires participants to complete 50 tasks in 50 days, and the ultimate task being committing suicide by jumping of a high-rise -- originated in Russia in 2013. The creator of the challenge, Philipp Budeikin, was arrested in May and sentenced to three years in prison. He had confessed, in an interview, that he deliberately incited 17 teenagers into committing suicide. Philipp, 22, said that he was eliminating people 'who do not represent any value, cause harm or will cause harm to the society' from the face of the Earth.
The Blue Whale Challenge, at least when it originated, had a curator who gets in touch with people who are curious about the game and posts from their social media accounts asking to be found. They use different hashtags for this purpose. Once the curator stalks those who posts with these hashtags and realises they're vulnerable, they talk to these people, mostly teenagers, in private messages.
Teenagers take up the challenge to prove a point to themselves and to their peers. Many think they will stop taking the tasks if the curator asks them to do dangerous deeds like jumping into a river despite not knowing how to swim, but usually they don't succeed in avoiding the urge to do the task.
Tasks range from listening to certain songs (we have heard some, and it's quite disturbing when listened to on loop) at 4 20 AM, isolating oneself, cutting oneself, travelling alone, watching horror clips, movies curators send at 4 20 AM, talking to fellow players over Skype, spending time in cemeteries, accepting one is about to die, accepting the date the curator says one will die on, and finally jumping off a high-rise killing oneself.
A college student committed suicide by hanging himself after he reportedly took up the Blue Whale Challenge.
Pramod Madhav | Edited by Isha Gupta and Vivek Surendran
August 31, 2017 | UPDATED 02:44 IST
HIGHLIGHTS
1
A 19-year-old college student committed suicide by hanging himself.
2
Body had an image of whale carved on the forearm.
3
Friends saw him attempting Blue Whale Challenge on his phone.
The Blue Whale Challenge has seemingly claimed a life in Tamil Nadu's Madurai. A 19-year-old college student from Thirumangalam -- Vignesh -- committed suicide by hanging himself on Wednesday. Vignesh was a second year student at Mannar College in Madurai. He was found hanging around 4:15 pm.
Police confirmed the image of a whale carved on Vignesh's left forearm with a blade and the words "Blue Whale" were written beneath it.
A note was also recovered from the spot which said, "Blue Whale- This is not a game but danger. Once you enter, you can never exit".
Vignesh's friends told the police that they saw him attempting the Blue Whale Challenge on his phone. Since there are no applications or website for the challenge, friends would have meant they saw Vignesh using his phone more than usual because the challenge involves conversing with a curator over messages, or sometimes, calls.
Further investigation is underway in the case.
Tamil Nadu Police had recently released a circular asking parents to keep an eye for children attempting the Blue Whale Challenge on the computer or their phones and to monitor their behaviour.
WHAT THE BLUE WHALE CHALLENGE IS
The Blue Whale Challenge -- a dare-based "game" that requires participants to complete 50 tasks in 50 days, and the ultimate task being committing suicide by jumping of a high-rise -- originated in Russia in 2013. The creator of the challenge, Philipp Budeikin, was arrested in May and sentenced to three years in prison. He had confessed, in an interview, that he deliberately incited 17 teenagers into committing suicide. Philipp, 22, said that he was eliminating people 'who do not represent any value, cause harm or will cause harm to the society' from the face of the Earth.
The Blue Whale Challenge, at least when it originated, had a curator who gets in touch with people who are curious about the game and posts from their social media accounts asking to be found. They use different hashtags for this purpose. Once the curator stalks those who posts with these hashtags and realises they're vulnerable, they talk to these people, mostly teenagers, in private messages.
Teenagers take up the challenge to prove a point to themselves and to their peers. Many think they will stop taking the tasks if the curator asks them to do dangerous deeds like jumping into a river despite not knowing how to swim, but usually they don't succeed in avoiding the urge to do the task.
Tasks range from listening to certain songs (we have heard some, and it's quite disturbing when listened to on loop) at 4 20 AM, isolating oneself, cutting oneself, travelling alone, watching horror clips, movies curators send at 4 20 AM, talking to fellow players over Skype, spending time in cemeteries, accepting one is about to die, accepting the date the curator says one will die on, and finally jumping off a high-rise killing oneself.
Salem City Police launch new website
Police Commissioner Sanjay Kumar (second left) launching the Salem City Police website at a function on Tuesday.
The Salem City Police on Tuesday launched a new website containing various facilities with the objective of bridging the gap between the police and the general public.
The website comprised the facilities of e-complaining, e-court, FIR status, vehicle status, applications of help app and women safety app, and spotting the nearest police station.
Sanjay Kumar, City Police Commissioner, launched the websitewww.salemcitypolice.comdeveloped by Bhemya Software Solutions Private Limited at a function held here.
On the occasion, he said that through this site the common people could come to know about the activities and administration of Salem City Police.
He said that the ‘HELP ME’ (e-alert) application was a mobile application which was developed exclusively for the city people for their safety.
‘FIND PS’ application was to ensure the safety of people even when they were away from the city.
With the help of ‘women safety app’ (help app button), any woman in distress can press the HELP button in the mobile and the officials would come to know about her location instantly using the GPS facility. The police personnel were being imparted training in using this application, Mr. Sanjay Kumar said.
Download
The mobie applications could be downloaded through the website:www.salemcitypolice.comdownloading the below links:http://salemcitypolice.c om/help-app,http://salemcitypolice. com/find-ps;http://salemcitypolice. com/women-safe.
The City Police have already launched a WhatsApp number 90872 00100 to enable people to lodge complaints.
G. Subbulakshmi, and R. Ramakrishnan, Deputy Commissioners of Police, were present on the occasion.
Awareness
Later, the Commissioner also addressed a meeting to create awareness on the government norm of carrying the original driving licence.
Mr. Ramakrishnan, Deputy Commissioner of Police (crime and traffic), also spoke.
Tamil software for use of govt. staff launched
New package:Collector S. A. Raman (centre) launching ‘Amma Menthamizh’, a Tamil word processor, in Vellore on Tuesday.
It will do away with hitches in fonts, says official
For the government staff in Vellore district, typing official documents in Tamil is all set to become hassle-free. The district administration has formally launched a software, Tamil word processor that has plenty of features in store.
Called ‘Amma Menthamizh,’ the Tamil word processor was launched by Collector S.A. Raman. It was developed by a team headed by N. Deivasundaram, retired professor and Head of Department of Tamil, University of Madras, and also recipient of the Chief Minister’s Tamil Computing Award for 2013.
“Other Tamil software feature font and keyboard drivers. This software offers word processing. It is based on Unicode. Users can take up spell check, grammar check and also refer to dictionary,” Mr. Deivasundaram said. For the last 20 years, the Tamil Nadu government was following a non-Unicode font following which the government issued an order to implement Unicode.
In fact, the software has been customised for government employees as it also enables them to refer to administrative dictionary in English to Tamil and Tamil to English.
Templates of official letters that government staff use on a regular basis is also available in readymade formats in the software, he said, adding, “It contains all facilities for editing any typed matter. It is a full-fledged software.”
One of the key highlights of the software is that it can change old files to Unicode in a fraction of a second. This is not just individual files but folders, he noted. “It is also available as a MS Office plug-in,” he added.
This software is being implemented in all 32 districts of Tamil Nadu. “We are conducting workshops for government staff on how to use the software,” he said. The launch of the software and workshop for staff was held in Vellore on Tuesday.
T. Lalitha, Deputy Director of Tamil Development, Vellore, said 200 CDs were provided for each district. “Implementing this software will do away with hitches in Tamil fonts. For instance, if we at Vellore use one Tamil font, while another is being used at Secretariat in Chennai, it leads to illegible text. With this software, we can avoid such problems,” she said.
MBBS mop-up counselling over
247 seats allotted under management quota; 17 go to NRI students
The mop-up counselling for MBBS degree course — for government quota, management quota and NRI quota seats — has been completed and allotment letters issued to students to join the respective colleges.
All the candidates from the general merit list of Puducherry/all-India merit/ NRI were called for the counselling.
As many as 247 seats were allotted under management quota (52 seats are converted from NRI quota) and 17 seats were allotted to NRI quota (including six seats of IGMC&RI). As per the court direction, six seats are reserved (IGMC&RI-3, in management quota PIMS -1, Sri Manakula Vinayagar Medical College-1, Sri Venkateshwaraa Medical College-1) while five government seats were filled. Four seats were surrendered.
As on August 29, Centac has received 148 DDs (self-financing colleges only) and handed them over to the colleges concerned.
Bakrid holiday tomorrow
Dakshina Kannada district in-charge Minister B. Ramanath Rai has said that the government has declared holiday on Friday in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts since Bakrid will be celebrated on that day.
While the official holiday was on September 2, the State Cabinet has agreed to shift it to September 1 for the twin districts. Saturday will be a normal working day, he added.
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