New Delhi: A group of students from Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) were allegedly threatened with knives and molested by three unknown men in front of Khau Gali near the campus Thursday evening.
An FIR has been lodged at the Infocity police station based on the complaint of one of the students, under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections pertaining to wrongful restraint, obscene acts, causing hurt using weapons, attempt to murder, and outraging modesty of a woman.
The students allege that the assault happened in front of a police van and KIIT security personnel, but no help was given to them by either.
According to the students, their clothes were torn and they were kicked on the ground. One of the students alleged she sustained injuries on her private parts in the assault.
Three of the five students that ThePrint spoke to separately gave consistent accounts of the alleged assault.
“My friend’s clothes were torn and I was pushed to the ground and kicked all over. The assaulters touched my breasts and private parts. I have sustained injuries in both places,” a first-year law student part of the group told ThePrint.
The female students said they have given separate statements in writing to Assistant Commissioner of Police Sonali Singh.
The reported assault took place the same day that a first-year BTech student Prisha Sah, hailing from Nepal, allegedly died by suicide at the KIIT campus. It is the second such case reported from KIIT in the last three months, with both deceased being Nepali students.
The students who were assaulted Thursday said they had taken active part in the protests that had erupted at the campus this February after the alleged suicide of Nepalese student Prakriti Lamsal. According to the students, they were “targeted” now because of their part in the protests.
ACP Sonali Singh said a probe in the matter is on and the police are trying to identify the perpetrators. “If the assault took place in the presence of the police, then we’ll investigate that aspect as well, and the cops concerned will be taken to task,” she told ThePrint.
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‘Pushed on the road, clothes torn’
A group of five students from KIIT visited Khau Gali at 5 pm Thursday to grab a snack, when three men, who seemed to be in an inebriated condition, allegedly attacked them.
The students claim the goons started hurling abuses in Odiya language, which the majority of the students didn’t understand.
“We didn’t think much of it, since it is not the first time I was verbally abused for being a non-Odiya person in the area,” said a fourth-year male engineering student, who hails from Bihar, adding that “things escalated fast, and they brandished butcher’s knives” at them.
Seeing her friend being threatened with a knife, a third-year computer science student tried to intervene but the men pulled her aside and tore her shirt, she said.
“I was pushed on the road and molested, and my shirt was torn apart,” the student said.
Another woman who came to the students’ aid was also assaulted. “When my friend came to help me button my shirt and provide security, she was attacked too and the men mounted her,” the student said.
Her friend, the first-year law student, alleged that she was pushed to the ground and beaten.
“The assaulters spoke to me in Odiya saying ‘you speak about women a lot, you’re fighting for a girl, now let me see how many women fight for you’,” the law student told ThePrint.
When other classmates pulled the men away from her, they were allegedly attacked with a knife and sustained injuries. The assaulters fled on a bike, they said.
“We went to the PCR van standing there, and even KIIT security. But they told us they could not help. One of the security personnel even said this had to happen since we were wearing shorts,” one of the students said.
“They pulled me in the middle of the street and unbuttoned my shirt and harassed me. I cried for help but onlookers, including shopkeepers, didn’t help,” the computer science student said.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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KIIT is a fraud perpetrated by the famous fraudster Achyut Samanta. KIIT must be closed down at the earliest and Mr. Samanta sent to jail.
It’s sad and disheartening that even after so many incidents the state government of Odisha keeps backing KIIT and it’s founder.