Team Herald
PANJIM: After the deadly ‘Blue Whale challenge’, another bizarre challenge has cropped up -‘Momo challenge’- the online challenge that targets teenagers and children and entices them to engage in a series of violent acts. The State Education Department taking serious note of the game, has decided to issue instructions to all the schools and higher secondary’s warning the heads of the institutions to be cautious about the challenge.
The Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) has also issued an advisory/precaution regarding the ‘Momo challenge’ to the Heads of Department of Higher Education and the Department of School Education, on the directions of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEIT). According to the MEIT, a few instances of children committing suicide due to Momo challenge have been reported in India.
“It is understood that an administrator of game uses social media platform to invite/incite children to play this game, which may eventually lead the child to extreme steps for self-infecting injuries including suicide. It is therefore requested to kindly issue advisory to schools and colleges,” MHRD said.
The game administrator uses the social media to invite children to play the game, wherein the player is asked to inflict injuries on self, sometimes even suicide. Speaking to HERALD, Director Education Gajanan Bhat said that they have received the communication from MHRD and accordingly, to understand what exactly the game is, a meeting was held with the Cyber Crime cell of Goa police. “They have explained us in detail about the game, which consists of a variety of self harming dares which becomes increasingly risky as the game progresses” .
The department has decided to train the teachers to create necessary awareness about the ill effect of the game amongst the students. “The children and teenagers are the set target of the game administrator,” Bhat said. Director said that department will issue instructions to heads of all the institutions, which will also include primary schools, to create necessary awareness about the deadly game. “We will be also asking institutions, to issue necessary advisory to the parents warning them to be cautious about the game played by their children online,” he said.
As per MEIT, in the game, the players are challenged to communicate with unknown numbers. It instigates the teenagers/children to add unknown contacts on WhatsApp by the name of ‘momo’. After the contact is added, the image of a terrifying Japanese Momo doll with bulging eyes appears. The player is threatened if the instructions are not followed.
