Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Nov. 28: With a new online game named ‘momo challenge’ floating on social media like Whatsapp, Facebook, and YouTube, department of school education has issued advisory to all school authorities and teachers to spread awareness in order to protect students and children from the deadly game.
As directed by the Ministry of Human Resources department, Government of India, the school education department issued this advisory to all district education officers on Nov. 27.
According to advisory the ‘game consists of a variety of self-harming dares which becomes increasingly risky as the game progresses and finally ends with a suicide challenge.’ It instigates teenagers and children to add unknown contacts on whatsapp by the name ‘Momo Doll’ with bulging eyes appearance. The player is threatened if the instructions are not followed, it added.
The advisory also suggested parents and guardians not ignore when they notice signs and symptoms such as isolating from friends and family, continuous low mood and unhappiness, worried look, sudden outburst of anger, loss of interest in activities that they used to enjoy, and marks like deep cuts or wounds on any parts of the body among their children.
Momo challenge has made headway in several countries after Kiki challenge and deadly Blue Whale game. Taking note of rising number of deaths in India, several state police have issued warning against the challenge. The game throws a series of challenges in the form of tasks to the people with suicidal tendency, which ends with the final task asking them to take their lives.
Economic Times on August 28 reported that the game had claimed two lives in India so far. Manish Sarki (18) of Kurseong in Darjeeling district hanged himself on August 20 while Aditi Goyal (26), also from Kurseong, committed suicide the next day. Describing the Momo Challenge as "a new killer game on social media," police has advised parents not to allow their children to play this online game.
Throughout 2017, media in India reported several cases of child suicide, self-harm and attempted suicide alleged to be a result of Blue Whale, and in response, the Indian government's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, requested that several internet companies (including Google, Facebook, and Yahoo!) remove all links which direct users to the game.
