Notice issued to Centre over PIL seeking stay on Blue Whale game

New Delhi: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued a notice to the central government on a Public Interest Litigation ( PIL) seeking stay on the Blue Whale Challenge game.

The deadly Blue Whale game, which has claimed many innocent lives, is an online game that challenges players for over 50 days, demanding them to complete tasks given by an anonymous controller.

The game firstly 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 include the final challenge to commit suicide.

The dreaded game is reportedly created by Phillipe Budeikin, a Russian psychology student.

Earlier, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, taking a strict measure against the deadly online game, had asked the social media giants like Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Microsoft and Yahoo to immediately remove all the links relating to the game.

"Instances of children committing suicide while Blue Whale Challenge have been reported in India...You are hereby requested to ensure that any such link of this deadly game in its own name or similar game is immediately removed from your platform," stated the ministry, in a letter, to the internet majors.

Taking the cognizance of the recent deaths in Mumbai and West Bengal, the ministry said the proponent of Blue Whale Challenge should be reported to law enforcement agencies.

On August 14, a series of tweets was put out by Ministry of Child and Development stating that Maneka Gandhi has taken up the matter with Home Minister Rajnath Singh and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.