Bhubaneswar: The suicide of a third-year Nepali girl engineering student in her hostel room by hanging in KIIT University and subsequent action of the University has exposed the insensitivity of the varsity authorities towards such incidents in the campus.
The attack by hired goons of the university on the students who agitated over the incident is a blatant example. The security guards of the University and the Warden of the Hostel did not flinch to assault the students during the protest and forced them to board buses to be sent to Cuttack railway station with warning to leave for their homes immediately.
It is only after public outcry—after the video of the assault went viral on social media—that the authorities relented and chose to issue a public apology. The strange thing that all these happened when the Founder of KIIT & KISS deemed to be university Achyut Samant and Vice-Chancellor and other senior functionaries were present at the protest site.
The issue has rocked the State Assembly also with senior Congress leader Taraprasad Bahinipati demanding a high-level probe. The Odisha Government has also formed a committee to look into the incident while the State Human Rights Commission has been approached for justice to the deceased girl and the 300-odd Nepali students who were subjected to torture for protesting the university authority’s attempt to hush up the case.
Suicide by students in KIIT university is not anything new. There have been several cases in the past also. But many such cases were managed by the authorities to be downplayed through various means. According many former students, “KIIT is a private institute, and like any other indian private institute out there, KIIT do fool us in many ways.” They say it does charge very much in the name of tution fees and along with that small amount like examination registration fees.
The institution has faculties which actually doesn’t know what they are doing, but still are there, they say. However, there are some really good faculties as well which are ready to help you in any way possible, be it your studies, or your personal issues, they add. The institution is being trolled in social media after the incident vigourously.
The issue now is that how come an educational institute be so insensitive towards such an issue. The KISS, a wing of the university, has a huge number of Tribal students and the Samant takes pride in claiming doing his best to promote these tribals. He has been bragging at every possible forum about his selfless service towards the Tribals but the people in the State know how he manages funds—both from national and international donors—to run the show. He even chose to contest Lok Sabha election from Kandhmal—a tribal dominated seat—on a ticket from the former ruling party Biju Janata Dal. It is very often alleged that he grabbed tribal land taking advantage of his position and furthering the interest of KIIT & KISS. It is also alleged that every year KIIT hikes the fees for different courses exorbitantly and admitted students below par from other states taking huge donations in the garb of Management Quota.
The innocent tribals often fall in his trap and he exploits them to further his political and financial ambitions. Pretending to be simple, he moves in luxury vehicles, lives in rented houses in high-end areas and wears designer slippers.
There are several allegation of conversion of forest land against the KIIT & KISS varsity during the previous BJD government of which he was an integral part. The institution has allegedly encroached up on government land also or has forced landowners to sell land to him. Because of his proximity with the power corridor, he has been efficiently managing the vexed issues.
Samant is known to invite eminent personalities to the campus on some pretext or the other which included foreign dignitaries, noble laureates and high placed government officials. Samant, publicity hungry, has devised a suave way to keep the mainstream media in his grip through hefty advertisements regularly. Its public relation set up makes it sure to get anything and everything published. He also doled out favours during his periodic meetings with the Editors of some local newspapers who have negligible circulation. KIIT allegedly has employed local goons to tackle ‘difficult’ times which is evident from the present case.
After the present case, it is now time for the State government to ensure safety and wellbeing of the tribal students in KISS. In a nutshell, the reputation of KIIT has now touched the lowest ebb following the recent incident and foreign students would think several times before taking admission in the institution. If that happens, KIIT would stare at a crunch of foreign funds.
