KIIT Suicide: 3 officials, 2 guards arrested after Nepali student's death, granted bail

Agitators staged a protest over the death of a Nepali student on the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) campus in Bhubaneswar. (PTI photo)

The five people, including three officials and two guards, arrested in connection with the forcible eviction of Nepali students from hostels at Odisha's Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology or KIIT, have been granted bail.

The arrested persons included Sibananda Mishra (59), Director General, HR, Pratap Kumar Chamupaty (51), Director (Administration), and Sudhir Kumar Rath (59), Director of Hostels, at KIIT University, and two security guards- Ramakanta Nayak (45), and Jogendra Behera (25).

They were accused of misbehaving with and manhandling students from Nepal who were protesting in the wake of the suicide. The five had been charged under sections 115(2) (causing hurt to any person), 126(2) (wrongful restraint), 296 (obscene act) and 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

A third-year B.Tech (computer science) student, Prakriti Lamsal (20), who studied at Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), allegedly died by suicide in her hostel room on February 16, after which massive protests erupted on the campus.

Students claimed she was being harassed by a fellow student. Advik Srivastava has been arrested on claims of abetting to Lamsal's suicide. The third year BTech student is in judicial custody. The Odisha government has also set up a high-level fact-finding committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding her death.

As talks with the protesters failed, they were ordered to vacate the hostel. Some of them were manhandled by the institute's staff. The officials were later arrested.

"The administration made extensive efforts, engaging in counselling and discussions for over 10 hours to manage the situation peacefully. However, despite their best attempts, some protestors were unwilling to listen to the university authorities and continued to create disruptions, posing a challenge to law and order. They also blocked the main road for hours, causing inconvenience and escalating tensions," the institute later said, according to a report by NDTV.