If you know someone – friend or family member – at risk of suicide, please reach out to them. The Suicide Prevention India Foundation maintains a list of telephone numbers they can call to speak in confidence. You could also accompany them to the nearest hospital.New Delhi: A report published on the fact-checking website BoomLive has reported that police in four states have said that a few recent cases of suicide had nothing to do with the “momo challenge” which the media has been reporting to be the “cause” of these deaths.Quite like the “blue whale challenge” that became a sensational issue around the world – where suicides were being reported as triggered or caused by young people completing this online “game”, the “momo challenge” is also being debunked similarly.According to BoomLive, police in Ajmer (Rajasthan), Darjeeling (West Bengal), Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and Cuttack (Odisha) have said that the suicides of young people there was not related to the momo challenge but the deceased were facing various other challenges, some of which were recorded in suicide notes.BoomLive’s report points to something else important as well – the media reports on the suicides could have been more accurate, truthful and factual if the cases had not been reported sensationally and breathlessly but were instead reported after the police and other investigators had some actual clarity.The “momo challenge” is purportedly a game disseminated on WhatsApp where an unknown number messages teenagers asking them to playa a game. The number then allegedly communicates various self-harming challenges which “culminates” in suicide.What the police saidIn Rajasthan, Times Now reported recently said that a class ten student had hung herself to death and slit her wrists.“The girl committed suicide in July and post that media reports started suggesting that the girl killed herself due to a game,” Rajesh Singh, Superintendent of Police (SP), Ajmer told BoomLive. After the media reports, the girl’s parents told the police that the suicide was “due” to the game.But when the police spoke to her friends, they said she was upset about faring badly in her exams and was scared of her parents. She had also written this in her suicide note.In Darjeeling, the suicides of an 18-year-old male and a 26-year-old female, were also being reported by PTI as linked to the momo challenge.Again, due to media reports, police had to look at the momo challenge angle. “We had already sent their phone for analysis and found nothing connected to any online game or the momo challenge,” Pinaki Dutta, Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO), explained.Another suicide in Chennai, in August was reported in OrissaPost who said, “While the boy died August 22, police clarified that the youth took the extreme step following an online game Saturday.”But when BoomLive contacted the police, they did not link the suicide to any online game.A fourth case of a suicide in Orissa was reported this month. The 25 year old’s parents told the police that they felt an online game could have had some role in it. “The parents have submitted a complaint and we are still analysing his phone but prima facie there is no involvement of any game in his suicide,” Madhab Chandra Sahu, SP, Cuttack (Rural) told BoomLive.The wild media reporting on the blue whale and momo challenge have resulted in considerable panic, with government agencies having to step in to contain the issue. India’s ministry of electronics and information technology has issued an advisory in August and various police departments have also done the same.