Engineering Student From Nepal Dies By Suicide At Odisha University, Batchmates Say She Was 'Harassed'
Bhubaneswar News: There was tension on the KIIT campus after the alleged suicide. Fellow Nepali students protested, demanding justice, and were sent home by authorities despite upcoming exams.
A student allegedly died by suicide in her hostel at a private engineering college in the Odisha capital of Bhubaneswar. The third-year B.Tech student was from the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), she has been identified as Prakriti Lamsal from Nepal.
In a statement, as quoted by news agency PTI, KIIT said: "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 relationship with another student in the same college. The institute said the incident was immediately reported to the police.
According to a report in The Indian Express, the students alleged that she was harassed by a batchmate, and that she had approached the International Relations Office too but the university took no action.
Bhubaneswar Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Pinak Mishra said the case was registered at Infocity Police Station “based on the allegation that a male student abated her suicide”, the PTI report said. The accused is currently in police custody and was interrogated. “The police have seized the mobile phone, laptop and other gadgets of the deceased woman. We are undertaking a scientific investigation into the matter."
The DCP appealed to the students not to take law into their own hands, and to maintain peace.
As mild tension arose among Nepali students at KIIT following the girl's death, the university authorities held discussions with the agitating foreign students to address their concerns and maintain peace on campus.
"Keeping in view the situation, the Nepal students have been sent to their respective homes. The situation presently remained calm," the KIIT said. Many students from Nepal assembled on the KIIT campus on Sunday night and staged a demonstration demanding justice.
The students were told to vacate the hostel immediately, and busloads of students were dropped at the Cuttack Railway Station although they will appear for exams on February 28.
While speaking to OTV News, a group of students, said that they had no tickets and that they hadn’t eaten any food. “We have no clue how to reach home.” To not give tension to their families, they haven’t informed their families back home. The students said that about 4-5 buses are dropped the students to the railway station.
#WATCH | KIIT University girl student death |
— OTV (@otvnews) February 17, 2025
"With no tickets, no food, we have no clue how to reach home. We cannot even inform our parents as they will be worried. We have exams coming in one week, but they are sending us away. We suspect they are sending us to erase… pic.twitter.com/EepAuNQRMA
“We have exams coming in one week, but they are sending us away. We suspect they are sending us to erase evidence," the students said according to the report.
Meanwhile, the university has said that the police have sealed the deceased girl's room and kept the body at the mortuary till the arrival of her parents.
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