Here’s how a Facebook alert to Delhi Police saved a man from committing suicide

A 39-year-old man who shared a live video of harming himself on Facebook was saved by the swift intervention of Delhi Police after it was alerted by a call from an office of the social media giant thousands of kilometers away in the US, officials said on Saturday.

On Thursday night, one Shohan Lal (name changed), a resident of Dwarka in West Delhi, inflicted multiple deep cuts on his hand following an altercation with neighbours. Lal works in a sweet shop and has two young children. He has been emotionally vulnerable since the death of his wife in 2016, they said. The altercation with neighbours triggered him to take the extreme step. While doing so, he live-streamed it on Facebook, a senior police officer said.

While all this was happening, at around 12.50 AM, DCP CyPAD Anyesh Roy received a call alert from Facebook’s US office about a suspicious self-harm live video being posted by a male Facebook user located in Delhi.

The alert was generated as part of the coordination framework established between Cyber Prevention Awareness and Detection (CyPAD), the Nodal Cyber Unit of Delhi Police, and international social media platforms, the police said.

Police checked and analysed the account details shared by Facebook. The mobile phone number linked to the account was found to be switched off. Later, police obtained the address linked to the mobile number and it belonged to Dwarka, the officer said.

A nearby emergency response vehicle (ERV) and its in-charge probationer sub-inspector Amit Kumar rushed to the given address to trace the man who was on the verge of killing himself, police said. When Kumar reached the location, he found the man on the stairs in a very bad condition as he had suffered heavy blood loss. The man was rushed to a nearby hospital and later shifted to AIIMS Trauma Centre, the officer said, adding that his condition was stated to be stable.