Trigger warning: The following article has references to suicide. Please avoid reading if you feel distressed by the subject.
On the morning of February 17, Pankaj Yadav, a 19-year old student, was fast asleep in his hostel room at the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) when he heard aggressive knocks on the door. He was startled to see the administrative staff of the university standing outside. He says they instructed him to pack his belongings and leave the campus in five minutes.
The first-year BTech student at KIIT in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, says he was not involved in the events that had unfolded on campus the previous evening, but he was still having to face the consequences. “I was told to go home, but it felt like I was being sent on exile,” he says.
On February 16, a Nepali student was found dead in her room. Angry students began protesting on campus, demanding justice for her and alleging that the university had ignored complaints of harassment. When tensions escalated, the university evicted more than 500 Nepali students from the university.
Yadav says he was unceremoniously dropped off at the Cuttack railway station, 30 kilometres away from campus, by a university bus and left to fend for himself. “I stood cramped inside the general compartments of multiple trains for more than 50 hours,” he says about his harrowing journey back home to Rajbiraj, a town in Nepal’s Madhesh province. “I waited at three railway stations, exhausted and hungry. I also spent one cold night at a friend’s place at Jogbani in Bihar on the India-Nepal border. My only fault is that I am Nepali,” he says.
The administration’s behaviour was “atrocious,” says Sanghamitra Jena of the All India Students’ Federation, which lent support to the KIIT students’ protest. “Instead of offering solace to the students who were agitated by the loss of one of their own, the authorities resorted to a heavy-handed approach,” she says.
Also read: Student death at KIIT raises questions about campus governance and students’ rights in HEIs
Even as videos of students being evicted appeared online, a video clip allegedly showing two faculty members making derogatory comments about Nepali students went viral online. These events triggered a response from Nepali Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, who took to X on February 17 to express concern over the incident. The university immediately backtracked on its decision to evict the students and removed the faculty members. The Odisha government swung into action and said that justice would be served in the case. But the protests did not abate.
On February 21, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said that “the Government of India accords high priority to the safety, security, and well-being of all international students in the country.” He added that the Ministry had constantly been in touch with the Odisha government ever since the matter came to light.
Nepali students leave the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology after the administration evicted them.
| Photo Credit:
ANI
A concert and a death
KIIT, a deemed-to-be university, was founded in 1992-93 as an industrial training institution and has now grown into an academic township of 36 sq km. Its 25 lush green campuses are home to more than 3,000 faculty members, researchers, and 15,000 staff. It has a 40,000-strong student community. Of them, 2,000 are foreigners from 65 countries. More than half the foreign students (1,068) are Nepali and stay in four hostels on campus.
On the afternoon of February 16, the mood was upbeat on campus, say students. Most of them were dancing to rapper Badshah’s performance at the university’s annual festival. It was around this time that Lamsal, a third-year BTech student of computer science, withdrew to the quiet of her room in Queen’s Castle-4 hostel, claims her friend, who has been protesting continuously on campus since. “A male batchmate had repeatedly abused her, which we believe pushed her to a breaking point,” she says.
At around 4.30 p.m., Siddhant Sigdel, Lamsal’s cousin, a third-year BTech student of KIIT, received a phone call. The caller told him that Lamsal had died by suicide and asked him to rush to the casualty ward of the Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital, a medical college of the KIIT Group, says the First Information Report which was filed based on a complaint lodged by Sigdel.
Family members of Prakriti Lamsal grieve her death in Bhubaneswar.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
“At around 5 p.m. in Nepal, I got a call from KIIT that my daughter had passed away,” says Lamsal’s father, Sunil Lamsal, while he waits in AIIMS Bhubaneswar for the post-mortem to be completed.
Phones buzzed incessantly as the news of her death spread like wildfire. “Many of us were trying to process what had happened and a sense of solidarity took hold,” says Kunal Dhami (name changed), a second-year BTech student, who was on his way to Nepal following eviction from the university and spoke to The Hindu over phone.
“We began to congregate at KIIT’s International Relations Office, which oversees the affairs of foreign students,” Dhami continues. “Indian students and students from other countries also joined us. All we asked for was a thorough and impartial investigation into her death.”
In his complaint, Sigdel told the police that Lamsal was being tormented by a batch mate, Advik Srivastava. The police tracked Srivastava down at the Biju Patnaik International Airport the same evening and are now interrogating him.
Despite the prompt action of the police, the students remained unconvinced and unhappy. “When we previously approached the Infocity Police Station with a complaint regarding a fight between two groups of students, they informed the university authorities and refused to register our complaint. The university then hushed things up,” alleges Sujit (name changed), a second-year student of mechanical engineering.
Bijan (name changed), another student, says the university was trying to “suppress the protests”. He says, “It seemed like they were trying to tamper with evidence to protect the institution’s carefully cultivated reputation.”
The students continued to demand that law-enforcement agencies secure Lamsal’s laptop and mobile phone. By then, an audio clip purportedly featuring a conversation between Srivastava and Lamsal surfaced on social media. It showed the man, who is allegedly Srivastava, abusing a woman, who is allegedly Lamsal. The words were incomprehensible, but the tone was clearly abusive, say students. “The audio made us even more angry,” says one of the protesting students.
Things come to a head
By the night of February 16, tensions had reached a boiling point. The founder of KIIT, Achyut Samanta, went to pacify the students and urged them to return to their hostels. But the crowd stood firm, show videos in the public domain.
Students say the campus then descended into chaos. “The university hired bouncers, who came down on us. Some students were chased down the campus and beaten black and blue. Some students received injuries and had blood stains on their shirts,” says a Nepali student.
While tempers ran high, two faculty members, Jayanti Nath and Manjusha Pandey, made “racist remarks” at a girls’ hostel, say students. “One of them bluntly told us to leave KIIT. It was humiliating when she said that the amount spent by the university on students’ welfare was more than Nepal’s GDP,” says a Nepali student. The students recorded the altercation and the videos went viral on social media, sparking outrage.
Yadav says he forgot to have dinner in the midst of these events and went back to hostel. “The next morning, I was asked to leave. When some of my classmates tried to ask the administration why they were being bundled off, they were attacked. The university staff was also busy trying to delete the videos of the previous night’s fiasco,” he says.
Bijan says everyone quickly collected their laptops and mobile phones and boarded the university buses parked outside hostels. The women were given two hours to leave campus, he says.
By then KIIT had issued a notice that read, “The university is closed sine die for all international students from Nepal. They are hereby directed to vacate the university campus immediately today on 17th February, 2025.”
Anil Pradhan, a Bhubaneswar-based education activist, asks why the people of one nationality were singled out during the unrest. However, KIIT justified the move. Shyam Sundar Beura, Additional Registrar of KIIT University, says, “The entire protest was led by Nepali students. The entire incident revolved around Nepali students. So the sine die notice mentioned only them.”
The sudden eviction led to an uproar. “How can they ask us to suddenly catch a train or flight to Nepal at such short notice? Many students had no money. For hours, we sat at the Cuttack Railway Station to board the next train to Kolkata, so that we could consider our next options there,” says Arjun Adhikari (name changed), a first-year BTech student who has gone back home to Biratnagar, Nepal. He adds that some students went to Delhi, some to West Bengal, and some others to Bihar. Many students went to relatives’ homes.
Hearing of the attacks and eviction, Nepali citizens staged demonstrations in front of the Indian embassy in Kathmandu. Prime Minister Oli took note. “Our embassy in New Delhi has dispatched two officers to counsel Nepali students affected in Odisha. Additionally, arrangements have been made to ensure they have the option to either remain in their hostel or return home, based on their preference,” he wrote on X.
Perhaps realising that this could spiral into a diplomatic crisis, the university issued an apology. It said, “We are also regretful of the way some of us behaved with the agitating students. We love them as much as we love the people of India and the people of the world. Additionally, we are again appealing our Nepali students to join the regular academics with immediate effect.”
Nath and Pandey issued separate apologies in videos online. Nath said, “My intention was never to offend, defame and demean anyone. I deeply regret if it has caused unintended hurt anyone. My words were directly instigated by statements during the protest where my country and institution were called corrupt and poor.” Pandey said she had made the remarks in the spur of the moment.
However, these expressions of regret have failed to cut ice with the students, who insist that the two faculty members, who have been removed from service, must apologise publicly in front of students. They intensified their protests on February 18 and 19.
A plea and no heed
The Mohan Majhi government in Odisha has set up a high-level committee, chaired by the State Home Secretary, Satyabrata Sahu, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the alleged death by suicide. The committee has also been tasked with examining claims of high-handedness by university authorities, the rationale behind issuing notices to a specific group of students, and the university’s decision of February 17 to close the institute for them. The committee summoned the founder, Samanta, for questioning.
Two ministers, along with the State Chief Secretary, met with Nepalese consular officials to discuss the safety and academic future of Nepali students. Majhi also said justice would be served and urged Nepalese students to return to India. However, the issue rocked the Odisha Legislative Assembly for the last three days, with MLAs from the ruling party and the Opposition demanding stringent action against the university.
Meanwhile, Lamsal’s relatives, who travelled to Bhubaneswar to claim her body, say she was bright and wanted to excel in the field of technology. They also say she was soft-spoken, talented, and loved by friends and teachers.
While performing the 13-day-long rituals following her death, Sunil Lamsal spoke about his daughter’s life and ambitions. “Even as a child, my daughter was a brilliant student. She graduated from school with good grades. Since many students from our municipality were studying at KIIT, we explored the university’s website and found that it had impressive infrastructure. So, we decided to send her there,” he says. He saw her last a month and half ago in Nepal.
Prakriti Lamsal had registered a complaint with the International Relations Office. Shradhanali Nayak, KIIT’s Director of Public Relations, says, “The girl had verbally reported experiencing mental harassment. The administration acted on her complaint and suspended the students involved for a month.” When asked who the “students” were, he gave no response.
However, Sunil Lamsal says the institute did not inform him about the harassment. “It is their duty to inform parents/guardians if the students are facing a crisis. They left her alone to deal with the situation. They failed in their duty,” he says.
A grief-stricken Sunil Lamsal is hoping that his daughter will get justice. “No other family should go through what I am going through,” he says.
In an apparent attempt to salvage its tarnished image, on February 19, KIIT announced a special scholarship for Nepali students in Prakriti Lamsal’s name. “This initiative will ensure that many more talented students like her have the opportunity to pursue their education without hurdles,” says Samanta.
But the announcement has done little to reassure the students. A Nepali student says, “On February 17, the authorities instructed us to vacate the hostel rooms in a humiliating manner, as if we hadn’t paid for the facilities. They left us stranded at the railway station. Now, under immense diplomatic pressure to accommodate us, the authorities, including teachers, have begun calling us frequently and urging us to return to campus. They can’t decide to keep us when it suits them and throw us out when it does not,” she says.
“I will need at least 15 days to decide whether I want to go back,” says Pankaj, who is at home in Nepal. “I did not pay a hefty fee to be treated like this.”
Those in distress or having suicidal tendencies can seek help and counselling by calling Sanjivini, Society for Mental Health at 011-40769002 (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-7.30 p.m.) or any of the numbers found in this link.
satyasundar.b@thehindu.co.in
Published – February 22, 2025 01:03 am IST
