(PTI): Five staffers, including three directors and two security guards, were arrested by the Bhubaneswar Police in Odisha on Tuesday. They were arrested on the charges of assaulting students from Nepal following a protest over the suicide of a female student at the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) hostel.
According to IANS, KIIT University’s Director General (HR) Sibananda Mishra, 59, Director (Admn) Pratap Kumar Chamupaty, 51, and Director of Hostels Sudhir Kumar Rath, 59. The police also apprehended security guards of the private university, Ramakanta Nayak, 45, Jogendra Behera, 25.
After the students came to know about the tragic death of Prakriti Lamsal, a third-year B.Tech student, in a hostel of the private university on Sunday, they held a protest against the authorities of the University. They demanded justice for the deceased. KIIT’s administration asked the Nepali students to vacate the hostels announcing sine die.
A police officer told IANS, that on February 17, when the students started to vacate the hostel, the accused reached the hotels and asked them to leave as soon as possible. They soon got angry and hurled abuses at the students.
“They also attacked the students and also thrashed them”, the officer said.
On Tuesday, the Odisha government constituted a high-level fact-finding committee to inquire into the alleged ill-treatment meted out to other students from Nepal by the authorities of the KIIT University in Bhubaneswar.
Meanwhile, expressing deep regret over the whole incident, the KIIT University has terminated two security guards and suspended three senior staff of the institution. “KIIT authorities and the entire staff deeply regret the incident that occurred on 16th February. Two Security staff were terminated immediately. Two senior hostel officials and one senior administrative officer of the International Relations Office (IRO), were suspended pending thorough enquiry. The staff have been actively persuading students to return to the campus as soon as possible,” informed the university registrar on Tuesday.
Prakriti Lamsal, a third-year B Tech (Computer Science) student of KIIT University ended her life on Sunday following harassment by her estranged boyfriend Advik Shrivastava, a student of B.Tech (Mechanical).
Police arrested the accused from Bhubaneswar Airport while he was trying to flee the city on Monday.
Her father Sunil Lamsal, who reached Bhubaneswar on Tuesday, said that he has full faith in the Odisha government and the police administration that they will ensure he gets justice.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Nepal government said that it may stop issuing no objection certificates to students who wish to study in institutes in Odisha if the situation arising from the death of a student at a Bhubaneswar university is not resolved in a “justifiable and legal way”.
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