KIIT SUICIDE CASE

Bhubaneswar/New Delhi : The fatal accident of a Nepali student at the Odisha-based
Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) sparked controversy on Monday
following the alleged repression of students by the institution after they protested over
the incident and were thrown out of the hostel, leading Nepal’s Prime Minister to step in.

Tensions erupted on the Bhubaneswar campus after a third-year BTech student from
Nepal was discovered dead in her hostel room on Sunday evening. The 20-year-old
computer science student purportedly died by suicide after a male student had been
harassing her, officials reported.

Local police arrested the male student – son of BJP leader Manoj Srivastav in Lucknow –
and filed a case against him for allegedly facilitating the suicide, said Bhubaneswar
deputy commissioner of police Pinak Mishra. Police, he added, had confiscated the
mobile phone, laptop and other devices of the deceased and were carrying out a
scientific inquiry.
Police stated that the accused, known to the victim, had taken a few secretly taken
pictures of her which generated tension between the two. “The accused would
blackmail the victim,” police commissioner S Dev Dutt Singh stated
The news of the death led scores of Nepali students to the campus on Sunday evening
for a protest. Some of them told they were requested to vacate KIIT. The university
issued a statement requesting all the Nepali students to leave the hostel. “We were
protesting for the girl. We don’t know what their intentions are but we were forcibly
made to vacate the hostel,” Rajan Gupta, a student of KIIT, said.
A notice given by KIIT stated, “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 February 17, 2025.

As the scandal ran out of control, Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Oli announced that two
representatives of Nepal’s embassy in New Delhi were deployed to the campus to aid
students. It has been brought to our notice that a Nepali student has passed away in
KIIT University hostel and Nepali students have been removed from the hostel. The
government is acting through diplomatic means and is in touch with the concerned
authorities,” the PM posted on social media.

Hours after, KIIT called on Nepali students to return to classes. “The administration of
the KIIT has made every effort to bring normalcy to the campus and hostels to start the
academic activities again,” the university said in a press release. “A request is made to
all our Nepali students who have already left the campus or intend to leave the campus
to return and start the classes again.

KIIT admitted that there was an “unfortunate incident” on the campus on Sunday after
which “police apprehended the culprit”. KIIT claimed that even with their best efforts,
“some protestors seemed unwilling to hear the university authorities and continued to
cause disruptions, being a challenge to law and order”. “They also jammed the main
road for hours, causing inconveniences.”. In order to avoid any untoward incidents and
have a smooth investigation, Nepali students were instructed to return to their
respective destinations until the inquiry is over,” read a press release from KIIT.
There are currently 500 Nepali students in KIIT.

After the protest, the authorities deployed dozens of police officers on campus. The
university first requested Nepalese students to return home, and a number of students
reported being driven out in buses and dropped off at Cuttack railway station. “We were
thrown out of the hostel. We were asked to leave within an hour. We don’t know how we
will go,” said Anil Prasad Yadav, a Nepali student at the railway station.
In the later part of the evening, the Indian embassy in Kathmandu stated that it was
“deeply saddened by the tragic death of a Nepali student at KIIT.”

The embassy has been informed that the local authorities have started investigating the
unfortunate incident. KIIT has also made an appeal to the Nepali students to come back
to the campus, continue their classes. It has also promised that academic losses shall
be addressed by the Institute,” the embassy statement read.
Odisha higher education minister Suryabanshi Suraj added that the people responsible
will receive strong action. “We arrested the accused and took them to court. The police
have seized all her personal belongings and are probing them,” Suraj added.