While many teens and young adults have fallen prey to the diabolical online game Blue Whale Challenge, it looks like this 17-year-old was in for some luck. The girl from Jodhpur in Rajasthan was rescued by divers and policemen after she jumped off a cliff into a lake yesterday, September 4.
The girl was reportedly seen riding her scooter around the lake for quite some time. She had left home on the pretext of going to the market, but her parents got worried when she did not return and her mobile phone was answered by a stranger. That is when the parents started looking for the girl, reported NDTV.
When the police reached the spot and called out to her she ran and jumped off the cliff, but was saved by the divers. Police officer Lekhraj Sihag said that he and a driver pulled the teen out of the water and on being questioned, she admitted to have been playing the Blue Whale Challenge and had jumped into the lake as a part of the tasks assigned. Not just that, the girl also had a blue whale carved on her arm.
"We got information at around 11 pm last night that a girl was driving around Kalyana lake...we reached the spot and called out to her but she ran up towards the hillocks surrounding the lake, then she jumped into the lake and we pulled her out in time," Sihag explained to NDTV.
The girl has now been handed over to her family.
More and more teens and young adults are falling into this evil trap. On Saturday, a 16-year-old boy committed suicide by jumping in front of a train in Damoh district of Madhya Pradesh. The incident was caught on a CCTV camera installed in a nearby building.
The Damoh Kotwali police station got the information of the suicide on Sunday morning and is now investigating the case. "Prima facie it seems a suicide case. The boy hailed from Damoh's Bada Pul area and his father works at Damoh Janpad Panchayat office," station officer Pradeep Soni told the Hindustan Times.
Friends of the 11th standard student told the police that he had been playing the Blue Whale Game, even though his family has rejected these claims and said that they had warned the boy of the online game. "The family members said he had assured them that he will not play any such game," Damoh superintendent of police Vivek Agarwal told the daily.
"However we have seized the boy's mobile phone. As its keypad is locked, the phone has been sent to Bhopal for analysis by a cyber forensic expert," he added.
