Madras HC directs Centre to prevail upon Russia to block Blue Whale game
Madurai: The Madurai bench of the Madras High court on Tuesday urged the Centre to use their diplomatic channel to prevail upon Russia to block dangerous online 'Blue Whale Game'.
Justices K K Sasidharan and G R Swaminathan, who had suo motu taken up the 'Blue Whale Menace' in view of the huge public interest, gave this ruling after hearing the views of the law enforcing agencies of the Central and State governments, cyber crime experts and advocates.
"The Central Government must seek cooperation and use its diplomatic relationship with Russia to block the URLS/Links related to Blue Whale game and take penal action against the culprits on behalf of India," said Justice Sasidharan while disposing the case.
The Court gave further directed the Central government to take appropriate steps, as expeditiously as possible, to bring all the "Over The Top (OTT)" services as well as service providers into a legal framework obliging them to comply with the laws of India, and to provide the required information to the law enforcing agencies.
And methods must be devised to ensure that those OTTs which could not be brought within such framework are not accessible in India, said the Judges.
The internet service providers must be directed to take due diligence to remove all the links and hash tags presently being circulated in the social media platforms and also in dark net with URLs/links related to 'Blue Whale' game, said the judges, adding, they should called upon to provide those suspicious information to the authorities prior to removal from their platforms.
The judges also directed the Tamil Nadu government to designate IPS officer S Murugan, an expert in Cyber law, presently working as joint director, department of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, Chennai, as a nodal officer to ensure the implementation of the order blocking the website and removal of links. The state government should provide necessary manpower and resource to the nodal officer, said the court.
The principal secretaries to the Government, School and Higher Education departments were asked to take active steps to ensure that all the educational institutions in the state would sensitize and warn the students as well as their parents not only about this game, but also the lurking dangers in the digital world. Taluk and district level committees should be formed involving various stakeholders to provide counselling and to earmark a dedicated telephone numbers for this purpose, said the judges.
The Court also directed the Computer Emergency Response Team, Union Government to collect the digital equipment used by the victims of 'Blue Whale Challenge game' for conducting digital analysis. The Madurai rural SP, P N Manivannan was asked to transmit the equipment seized in connection with 'Blue Whale induce suicide' of college student Vicky alias Vignesh on August 30 here.
