Thiruvananthapuram: Social media addiction among people in Kerala came to the fore on Wednesday when two lives were lost — one while posing for a selfie before a speeding train and the other while enacting hanging in order to post the video on Facebook.
A 15-year-old, identified as Edwin, son of Chiyyaram Pulikkottil Vincent, was instantly killed by a speeding train while posing for a selfie on the track on Wednesday.
Reports said Edwin was accompanied by his brother Godwin and a few friends when the horrific incident happened.
Edwin apparently wanted to have a selfie with an approaching train in the background to post on social media. Local media reports from Thrissur said his brother and a friend who witnessed the horror collapsed unconscious.
Edwin was later rushed to a hosptial in Koorkencherry where he was pronounced dead.
The teenager had passed the Class X examination from the Cherppu Lourdes Matha School and was awaiting admission formalities for higher secondary education. Edwin’s father Vincent is based abroad.
In the second incident, Abhilash (32), son of Sasi and Santhamma, and a native of Eruva near Kayamkulam apparently hanged himself inadvertently while trying to capture himself in a video, enacting a hanging, and post it on Facebook.
Abhilash’s relatives were quoted as saying that he had earlier posted a video of a mock hanging on Facebook, and that on seeing the video the father of one of his friends had reprimanded him.
In the latest attempt to videograph a hanging scene and post it on social media, the plot turned literally deadly for him. Abhilash has two siblings.
