Bhubaneswar: Normalcy is slowly returning to Odisha’s Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), days after the alleged suicide of a 20-year-old Nepalese woman, as students turned up for classes in large numbers Thursday amid tight security on the campus.
The unrest on the KIIT campus began Sunday, after 20-year-old Prakriti Lamsal died allegedly by hanging herself. Around 1,000 Nepalese students of the private institute were reportedly issued suspension notices and asked to leave the campus by its authorities Monday, following protests after her death.
Meanwhile, Commissioner of Police S Dev Datta Singh said it has obtained a three-day remand of a 21-year-old engineering student, who was arrested on a charge of abetting the woman’s suicide.
“The accused has been brought on a three-day remand during which the police will further interrogate him and verify certain facts,” Singh said.
The arrested student was nabbed at the Biju Patnaik International Airport here while attempting to flee the city Sunday evening, hours after the woman’s death. He has been accused of blackmailing and verbally abusing her.
Police sources also said the accused will undergo a voice spectrography test to ascertain facts. The test is a non-invasive procedure that uses a spectrogram to analyse the sound waves of a person’s voice, they said.
Singh said police have seized mobile phones and laptops of both the deceased woman and the accused, and sent those to a forensic lab.
Though classes at the institute resumed Monday, very few students attended. However, on Thursday, students in large numbers attended classes, as police personnel kept a tight vigil on the campus, officials said.
The Nepalese students who were asked to leave the campus are yet to return, they said.
Following the intervention of the Centre and the state government, the KIIT authorities had tendered an apology and requested the Nepalese students to return to the campus.
It has opened a round-the-clock help desk, too, to facilitate their safe return.
The Odisha government has also formed a high-level committee to probe into the circumstances that led to the woman’s death, as well as the alleged mistreatment of Nepalese students.
PTI
