The police on Thursday arrested five more staff of the private engineering college KIIT here on the charge of assaulting Nepalese students while they were vacating the hostel following a direction of the institute authorities, police said.
With this, the number of people arrested in the KIIT fiasco increased to 11 including an engineering student, who was booked for allegedly abetting the suicide of a 20-year-old Nepalese woman in her hostel room on Sunday.
Following her death, the Nepalese students had staged demonstrations demanding justice.
The Infocity Police Station in a statement said that the five accused persons, all employees of KIIT, were found in CCTV footage assaulting the students while they were vacating their hostel rooms on Monday between 11 am to 12.20 pm.
Also read: KIIT limps back to normalcy as protests subside
“The KIIT staff suddenly arrived there and asked them to leave as soon as possible. Seeing that the students were a little late in vacating the hostel, the accused persons suddenly got angry and abused them in incomprehensible language, attacked them and beat them up. As a result, the students immediately fled from the place,” the police said.
The police later produced them at the court
.
“Based on the evidence provided by the police, the court has rejected their bail petition and remanded them to judicial custody for 14 days,” the police said.
Earlier, the police had arrested five employees of the deemed to be university, and they secured bail. The police were criticised from different quarters for the five accused getting bail.
Additionally, expediting its inquiry into the alleged suicide of a girl student and subsequent action against other Nepalese pupils, the Odisha government's high-level committee summoned KIIT founder Achyuta Samanta for his personal appearance before it on Friday.
The Higher Education Department, in a letter to Samanta on Thursday, said, "You are requested to appear before the high-level committee on 21.02.2025 at 6.30 pm at State Guest House to adduce evidence with adequate documentary evidence before the committee on the term of reference as stated in the office order." The three-member committee, headed by Additional Chief Secretary, Home Department, Satyabrata Sahu, is mandated to ascertain the circumstances leading to the suicide, alleged high-handed action by the institute authority, reasons for issuing notice to only a specific group of students and closing the institute sine die for them and other incidental matter that emerges during inquiry.
The committee, also comprising the secretaries of higher education department and Women and Child Development (WCD), had visited the KIIT campus on Wednesday and held a discussion with some of the Nepalese students who were allegedly mistreated by the staffers of the private institute for staging demonstration on the campus.
Higher Education Minister Suryabanshi Suraj said, "The high-level committee is empowered to summon anyone for the purpose of inquiry into the matter. The committee is functioning on the basis of law." Noting that the state government is committed to protecting the interest of students, the minister said.
"The state government has also discussed with the officials of Nepal Embassy and apprised the students about the developments," he said.
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