BITS Pilani student ends life in suspected Blue Whale challenge

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Hyderabad: An engineering student of BITS Pilani-Hyderabad campus committed suicide by suffocating himself using a plastic bag wrap at his house in Gandipet on Saturday. Police suspect the youngster may be a victim of Blue Whale challenge game.

The victim, T Varun, 19, son of Vijay Bhaskar, a resident of Maple Town, Sun City, Gandipet, was pursuing engineering second year at Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani-Hyderabad campus.

On Saturday morning, family members of Varun found him lying dead in the bed. “At 10 pm on Friday, Varun’s parents spoke to him. Later, they went to sleep in the bedroom on the first floor and Varun slept in the ground floor bedroom. On Saturday morning, they saw Varun lying dead in the bed with his head wrapped in a polythene bag,” Rajendranagar sub-inspector (SI) K Venkat Reddy said.

“He tied the bottom of the bag around his neck with a string,” the SI said.

Varun came home a week ago. There was no suicide note and, during the preliminary probe, family members said he spent most of the time on laptop and did not venture out.

“Family members suspect he could be playing Blue Whale Challenge. The laptop and cell phone of the victim have been seized. As they are password protected, we will send them to FSL for analysis,” the SI said.

Varun was the second son of Vijaya Bhaskar, a software professional, police said.

Police registered a case under section 174 (suspicious death) of the CrPC. After postmortem, the body was handed over to the family.