The Supreme Court on Friday asked the government to respond to a petition for an immediate direction to ban online game ‘Blue Whale’, which is suspected to be behind the deaths or attempted suicides of teenagers and young adults hooked to it.
A Bench, led by the Chief Justice of India, issued notice to the government on a petition by advocate C.R. Jaya Sukin, representing another lawyer N.S. Ponnaiah, who wanted the government to take immediate steps to spread awareness about the dangers of playing the game and end its availability online.
The court asked Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal to assist the court.
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‘No steps taken’
Mr. Sukin argued before the Bench that the government, till now, had not taken sufficient steps even as the number of cases of self-inflicted injuries and suicides were increasing.
The petition said the game had spread its tentacles across the cities and was enticing even school students to play.
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“The game goads young people into killing themselves. The blue whale on-line game encourages people to take part in increasingly dangerous harmful dares that finally culminate in instructions by the administrators to kill themselves,” it said.
“Parents are doing their best to prevent their children from playing the game,” the petition said.