Police get 3-day remand of accused

Bhubaneswar: Normalcy is slowly returning to 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 on Thursday amid tight security on the campus.

The unrest on the KIIT campus began on 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 on Monday, following protests after her death.

Meanwhile, Commissioner of Police S Dev Datta Singh said it has obtained three-day remand of a 21-year-old engineering student, who was arrested on charge of abetting the woman’s suicide. “The accused has been brought on three-day remand during which the police will further interrogate him and verify certain facts,” Singh said.

The arrested student was nabbed at Biju Patnaik International Airport here while attempting to flee the city on 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 on Monday, very few students had 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.

The committee comprises the Additional Chief Secretary of the Home Department, Principal Secretary, Women and Child Development and Commissioner-cum-Secretary of the Higher Education Department. The committee paid a visit to the university and held discussions with various stakeholders on the matter.

Home Department Additional Chief Secretary Satyabrata Sahu said, “As per the instructions of the State government, we have come here and held discussions with various stakeholders. We are here to visit the places where the incidents have taken place.

We will also hold discussions with the affected students. We will submit the report to the government

in time.”