Labourer's son among three saved in Bengal

KOLKATA: 'Blue Whale' appears to have ensnared children from remote corners of West Bengal. Days after a headmistress of a school in North 24-Parganas counselled two Class IX girls who had become addicted to the notorious challenge, three more cases emerged from across the state on Friday.

A Class VIII student from

West Midnapore

's

Belda

, who hails from a poor family of daily wagers and doesn't even have access to a smartphone, used a needle to draw a whale's image in his arm simply because his elder brother told him to do so. The same day, two candidates for next year's Madhyamik examination one in Hooghly's

Serampore

and another in Howrah's Shyampur -were found with a whale-shaped cut marks on their arms. They had used blades and needles to etch the image on their arms. While the teen from Howrah had just been initiated into the game by its administrators, the boy from Serampore had progressed to level 11 of the challenge.

At Serampore, Class X stu dents of Mahesh Sri Ramkrishna

Ashram Vidyapith

alerted teachers after finding a fellow classmate carrying a knife in his bagWhile confiscating the knife, The teacher noticed cuts on the teen's hand resembling the blue whale image and alerted school headmaster

Suman Chakraborty

, who summoned the student's father and police.

The father said he had noticed his son behaving unnaturally for the last few days. During questioning, the boy admitted he had reached level 11 of the challenge. Serampore police seized the boy's mobile phone and asked the father to take his son for counselling.

In Howrah's Shyampur, another Class X student raised the suspicion of classmates and teachers when he reached school on Friday with his left arm bandaged. When he was made to unwrap the bandage, cut marks resembling a whale with the words 'B.whale' appeared.The student admitted he had used a needle to make the marks. Howrah SP

Gaurab Sharma

said, “We deleted the Blue Whale app from the boy's mobile phone and counselled him.“