The Supreme Court on Monday furthered its involvement in educating young school students on the perils of the dangers of virtual games like the Blue Whale Challenge and directed all States to create awareness among students. It, however, disposed of a petition filed by lawyer Sneha Kalita seeking to frame guidelines to regulate such dare games.
The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud also considered the interim report of a special Central committee that had earlier been constituted to conduct an enquiry into the game-related suicides in some States.
On October 27 the apex court had asked Doordarshan to produce a 10-minute educational show on the perils of virtual dare games. It had said educational TV programmes should also be shown not only by public broadcaster Doordarshan but also by private channels on prime-time.
It directed all State Chief Secretaries to ask the secretaries of concerned departments to create and spread awareness pertaining to the dangers of the game. The bench also directed the Union Human Resources Development Ministry to take requisite steps to inform all schools in the country about the ill-effects of such games.
While India saw at least six deaths since the deadly game spread to India earlier this year, Russia has reported over 130 deaths since the death fad began. Other countries to have fallen prey to the infamous Blue Whale and similar deaths were also reported in Brazil and parts of Asia.
The extremely dangerous game aims, through a series of 50 dares that go from mild to severe, to mentally torture the player to the point of killing themselves on the last dare.
