Bhubaneswar:
Tension erupted on the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) campus in Odisha yesterday after a third-year student from Nepal was found dead in her hostel room. BTech student Prakriti Lamsal died by suicide, authorities said. Dozens of Nepali students assembled last night and staged a protest, after which they claimed they were evicted from the campus.
Several posts have surfaced on social media claiming that Lamsal was being harassed by her ex-boyfriend. Her cousin too filed a complaint saying she was being blackmailed by a male student at the university, which led her to hang herself.
A statement issued by the KIIT also made similar claims.
“A Nepali student studying in the third year of B-Tech committed suicide in the hostel yesterday. It is suspected that the student was in a love affair with another student studying at KIIT. It is suspected that the student may have committed suicide due to some reason,” said the statement.
The police have lodged a case on the allegation that a male student abetted her suicide, said Pinak Mishra, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Bhubaneswar.
“The accused student is in police custody and subjected to interrogation. The police have seized the mobile phone, laptop, and other gadgets of the deceased woman. We are undertaking a scientific investigation into the matter,” he said.
The senior official also appealed to the students to maintain peace after their protests sparked tension on the campus last night. Authorities deployed two platoons of police personnel to maintain law and order. In view of the situation, the university said it asked the students from Nepal to go back home, after which the Nepali students were packed in two buses and dropped at the Cuttack Railway Station this morning.
“The University is closed Sine Die for all the International students from Nepal. They are hereby directed to vacate the university campus immediately today on 17th February, 2025,” read a notice shared on social media.
However, a university release, soon after, appealed to all students from Nepal to “return to the campus and resume the classes”.
“The KIIT administration has taken all-out efforts to restore normalcy in the campus and hostels to resume the academic activities,” it said.
Anil Prasad Yadav, a student from Nepal, told reporters at the railway station they were pushed out of the hostel.
#WATCH | Rajan Gupta from Nepal says, “…We were protesting for the (deceased) girl. We don’t know what their intentions are but we were forcibly made to vacate the hostel. There is no fixed schedule of the train, I have no money. We have not even had food. We are helpless…We… pic.twitter.com/bj2TLUWWIx
— ANI (@ANI) February 17, 2025
“We went to the International Office and sat overnight on a dharna, but we were sent back. We were finally asked to pack up and leave within an hour. We don’t know how we will go. We did not have food. We are trying to get a ticket,” he told news agency ANI.
Another student, Rajan Gupta, said they were protesting for the student who had died, but they were forcibly made to vacate the hostel. “The staff members came and asked us to vacate. They even hit those who were not packing quickly,” he said.
Taking note of the incident, Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli said his government is working on this issue through diplomatic channels and is in touch with the authorities.
On the law-and-order situation, a senior cop said police personnel have been deployed both inside and outside the campus to maintain law and order. A university official said the cops have also sealed the dead student’s room and kept her body in the mortuary to hand over to her parents.
The KIIT said the campus situation is now calm.
Meanwhile, students from other states have claimed that the university’s private security guards were not allowing them to leave the hostel. A video has also gone viral showing the students clashing with the guards, but it could not be verified. University officials have also refused to comment on this allegation.
