Thiruvananthapuram: When her 16-year-old son suddenly started to go out late night and visit cemeteries nearby, Anu, his mother never expected that he was addicted to the killer game Blue Whale. Weeks after the suicide of Manoj, when his mother Anu revealed the secret behind the death, Kerala listened to her with startling disbelief. The eerie game has reached Kerala, finally; and has claimed one already.
There are reports from across the globe that many had fallen prey to the deadly Blue Whale, the secret game. But the news of the suicide of the teenager from Thiruvananthapuram caught the Kerala society quite unexpectedly.
His mother Anu tells that there was something mysterious about the way Manoj behaved in the months before his death. Anu still remembers that her son telling her about some sort of a game like this and that he had downloaded it after going through all the guidelines. At that time itself, she had cautioned him against it and asked him not to play it. Though he promised her then that he won't, Anu now believes that her son had been secretly playing it. Anu told Manorama News that there were glaring changes in his character from last November onwards. His parents had no clue on the reasons behind his death till very late the discussions about this game hit all over the media. When they went through all these reports, they realized that her son had been showing the signs of a Blue Whale addict and he ended his life by meeting the task set by the game.
Their son, a plus one student, never used to venture out of the house alone. But all of a sudden, he started to go out late for films. That was the beginning. But later, they came to know that he was lying. Instead, he was spending time in the cemeteries alone during late nights. When quizzed about it, he convinced his parents that he was experimenting whether there was negative or positive energy in a cemetery in stark night. He also started watching ghost movies and made it a practice to visit the houses where a death had happened.
Then Manoj began to visit seashores like Shankumugham in Thiruvananthapuram. He told his parents that he was going to the beach with his friends. But after a while, the parents learned that he went alone. In January, he wrote 'ABI' with a compass on his hand. As he couldn't manage to do it alone, he coaxed his friend to help him out. Manoj, who didn't know swimming, once jumped into the vortex of a river and asked his friend to record it on his mobile phone and he kept the visuals in his mobile.
The teenager maintained a distance from the family in his last nine months. He used to sleep at five in the morning and would wake up at 11 am. Whenever he was asked about this, he used to explain that he had been chatting away till early morning. But later, when his parents asked about this to his friends, it became clear that he had not been chatting to his friend on those nights. His parents now doubt that he had been engrossed in the Blue Whale game throughout the night in his mobile phone. He never opened up about this even to his close friends, Anu said.
Manoj once asked his mother whether she would be sad if he had died. And also enquired whether she could manage to withstand his death. He told her to love his sister even if he was gone. That day, Anu told him that both her children were equally dear to her and it was better not to indulge in unnecessary talk.
The plus one student was found hanging in his home on 26 July. His parents said in their complaint to the police that Manoj had downloaded the macabre Blue Whale game nine months before his death. Though they had tried to dissuade him from it, they failed. Before committing suicide, the teenager had deleted the game from his phone. The cyber police team is examining the phone now.
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