Odisha university student’s suicide: Victim’s father says KIIT should have acted on her complaint

According to the FIR, the complainant, the deceased student’s cousin, suspected the accused was blackmailing her, which led her to take the extreme step.

As reported by The Indian Express, protesting students from Nepal have alleged that the university authorities took no action when victim reached out to the International Relations Office (IRO) at the university, flagging harassment by her batchmate.

Speaking to The Indian Express, KIIT registrar Jnyana Ranjan Mohanty confirmed that she had lodged a complaint with the IRO over “misbehaviour” by the accused.

“The IRO officials then called both students, counselled them and also warned the accused not to do so in the future,” Mohanty told The Indian Express. He said they have not kept anything in writing from the accused.

Talking to reporters outside the AIIMS morgue, where the post-mortem of the deceased is being conducted, her father said he and his wife last spoke to their daughter at 2:51 pm on Sunday.

“She was absolutely normal then. She said she is going to attend the fest on campus and may not be able to take a call for some time. She would call once she would return to her hostel room. Between 5 pm and 5:30 pm on Sunday, we got a call from the university authorities about her suicide and were asked to reach Bhubaneswar as soon as possible,” he said.

He said their daughter never complained about the alleged harassment by the accused, who is her batchmate.

He said they came to know about the details of the incident from media reports after reaching Bhubaneswar.

“We only need justice, nothing else. We came to know that the accused has been arrested. If he is guilty, he should be punished accordingly,” the victim’s father said.

On allegations about the poor response by the university authorities, he said, “Our daughter has gone. But we want this shouldn’t happen with any other students in the future. Students from far off areas come here to study. Such incidents shouldn’t happen.”