Bhubaneswar, February 24: The Nepal National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has written to the Indian Human Rights Commission to investigate the death of a Nepali girl student at Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) in Odisha. The NHRC also asked for an investigation into the abuse of students who protested the death.
KIIT University has been in the eye of the storm since February 16 after the 20-year-old girl – Prakriti Lamsal – a computer science student, was found hanging in her hostel room following alleged blackmails by her classmate, a 21-year-old mechanical engineering student from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.
The incident snowballed into a major crisis after protesting students were forcefully evicted from the campus and allegedly assaulted by university authorities, with two women officials allegedly hurling racial abuses at the Nepali students. The two women staffers, now suspended, were recorded making remarks that compared the university’s budget to Nepal’s national budget.
The KIIT founder and Vice-Chancellor apologized for the behaviour of some staff members towards the students.
The Nepal NHRC asked the Indian Human Rights Commission to investigate the death of Prakriti Lamsal and the abuse of students who protested the death.
Meanwhile, KIIT founder Achyuta Samanta and seven other officials of the university appeared before the high-level probe committee, headed by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Satyabrata Sahu and recorded their statements in connection with the suicide and subsequent actions by the university authorities against the Nepali students.
