With many Nepali students who were asked to leave the KIIT University campus in the aftermath of the suicide of an engineering student yet to return to their hostels, senior Nepal embassy officials have raised concerns over their safety and security, The Indian Express has learnt.
Two senior officials from the Nepal embassy in Delhi are in Bhubaneswar to hold discussions with Odisha government representatives over the death of 20-year-old Prakriti Lamsal, an engineering student at Odisha’s Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), and the safety of protesting Nepali students. Lamsal, who is from Nepal’s Kathmandu, died on campus Sunday evening, sparking a standoff between Nepali students and the university administration.
According to Odisha’s Higher Education Minister Suryavanshi Suraj, embassy officials “emphasised on the ensure safety and security of students from Nepal and requested that the students shouldn’t face mental harassment (by the institution) after their return to the campus”.
“We assured that this would not happen and we have also issued a directive to the University in this regard,” he said after the meeting. “The Odisha government will ensure full proof security of the students from Nepal and the state government will soon issue a helpline number, which will instil confidence among the students. Efforts are being made to bring back the students, who have already reached Nepal and are in different parts of India. Less than 100 students from Nepal reached the campus Tuesday.”
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, who also met the embassy officials, has promised that “peace and normalcy” would soon be restored on the campus, he added.
On Monday – a day after the student’s death – the KIIT asked over 500 protesting students from Nepal to leave the campus immediately, with buses being arranged to drop them off at different railway stations. Following Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s intervention, the university announced it had withdrawn its decision and allowed students to remain on campus.
However, protesting students allege that the university authorities asked them to sign an undertaking before allowing them to remain in hostels.
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“The undertaking reads that we will not repeat any indiscipline activities in future. What indiscipline activities have we indulged in so far? Why have we been asked to sign that we won’t ‘repeat’ any indiscipline activities? All we were doing is demanding justice for our friend,” a student, who has been staging a silent protest outside the KIIT University campus since the incident, told The Indian Express.
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