KATHMANDU, Feb 19: The three directors and two guards who were arrested after a complaint for harassing Nepali students and chasing them out of Odisha's Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) hostel have been let off on bail. The Judicial Magistrate First Class-2 (JMFC-2) court granted bail to three directors and two security personnel on Tuesday. Odisha TV reported that the court released them on a bond of INR 20,000.
After Nepali student Prakriti Lamsal's (a third-year B Tech, Computer Science, student) suspicious death at Odisha’s Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) University on Sunday, tensions had flared up in campus premises.
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Bhubaneswar police arrested and presented five individuals in court. The accused include Shivanananda Mishra (59), Director General of Human Resources; Pratap Kumar Champati (51), Director of Administration; Sudhir Kumar Rath (59), Director of Hostels; and KIIT security guards Ramakant Nayak (45) and Jogendra Behera (25).
After the incident, KIIT students staged a silent protest, accusing university staff and security personnel of physically assaulting Nepali female students and evicting them from the hostel. Sources reported that university staff and security guards allegedly beat Nepali students. Meanwhile, authorities placed Advik Srivastava, accused of harassing and blackmailing Prakriti, in judicial custody for carrying out an investigation.
The Additional Chief Secretary of the Home Department is leading a high-level fact-finding committee that the Odisha government formed on Tuesday. Senior officials from the Women and Child Development and Higher Education Departments have joined the committee. The government immediately arrested the involved security personnel and suspended officials implicated in wrongdoing.
