NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today sought response from the Centre on a plea of a 73-year-old man from Tamil Nadu seeking a ban on the Blue Whale challenge game linked to deaths of several children worldwide.
The apex court also sought the assistance of Attorney General K K Venugopal in the matter.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud issued notice to the Centre and sought its response in three weeks.
The apex court had on September 11, agreed to hear the plea filed by advocate N S Ponnaiah who also sought creating of awareness among the public about the online game.
Till September 5, media reported that at least 200 people had committed suicide after playing the online Blue Whale game. Most of them are young children in the age group of 13 to 15 years, the petition filed through C R Jaya Sukin said.
The petitioner said the Madurai City Police had confirmed that a college student, who had committed suicide after playing the game, had forwarded it to over 150 friends.
The Delhi High Court had on August 22 sought the response of Facebook, Google and Yahoo on a plea to direct them to take down the links of the Blue Whale challenge - an online game that challenges players for over 50 days to complete tasks given by an anonymous controller.
The game firstly asks the player to draw a whale on a piece of paper, then carve a whale figure on their body, and then gives other tasks such as watching horror movies alone etc. The tasks include the final challenge to commit suicide.
The online game is created by Phillipe Budeikin, a Russian psychology student.