Bhubaneswar: An 18-year-old Nepalese student was found dead in her hostel room at the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) in Bhubaneswar on Thursday evening.
The first-year student, a native of Birgunj 135 km outside the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, was found hanging from the ceiling fan of her hostel room, NDTV reported citing police.
Enrolled in the Computer Science B.Tech programme, she is the second Nepalese student to die at the university in three months.
The forensic teams arrived at the scene after police and authorities were alerted about the death around 8.pm.
Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Police Commissioner Suresh Dev Datta Singh said the death is treated as a case of suspected suicide, ahead of the outcome of the post-mortem examination.
Suresh Dev Datta Singh reportedly said: ‘Today, we have received information that a girl from Nepal has died by suicide at the KIIT University. We reached there and investigated the matter. A detailed investigation will be conducted into the matter. The scientific team arrived, and all the necessary details were collected. Her family has been informed. The body has been sent to AIIMS for the post-mortem.’
Security has been beefed up in the university premises amid growing concerns over the safety of international students, especially those from Nepal.
The death of Nepalese student at KIIT comes in less than 90 days after third-year B.Tech student Prakriti Lamsal, a Nepalese national, was found dead in her hostel room on February 16.
Lamsal's death caused raging protests from the Nepalese student community, criticizing the university founded and run by Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader and former MP Achyuta Samanta.
It emerged later that Lamsal had filed complaint with the university's International Relations Office (IRO) about sexual harassment she faced from a fellow student.
The university administration did not take any action leading to protests from students and civil society groups, with the National Human Rights Commission of India terming the university’s inaction as ‘gross negligence’. However, the accused in the case was arrested a day after Lamsal's death.
Samar Bahadur, a spokesperson for Nepalese student community, the Akhil Bharat Nepali Ekta Samaj, demanded an ‘impartial and speedy investigation’ into the incident alongside calling it a "disturbing pattern" of neglect and failure in student welfare at the university.