KIIT student suicide: Student raised complaints twice, PoSH panel was not in loop
Friends of the deceased student said she was under a lot of distress because of her ex in the weeks leading up to her demise on Feb 16
A student of KIIT, Bhubaneswar, who recently died by suicide, lodged complaints with the university authorities twice but they were not put forth before the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH) panel as it was ‘mental’ and not physical abuse. Students also claimed that they had no idea there were provisions for PoSH on the campus.
The deceased student’s friend, who accompanied her when she went to file a complaint to the International Relations Officer (IRO) on January 25, told The Print that this was the second time they had gone to file a complaint against Advik Srivastava, the ex-boyfriend of the deceased.
However, the IRO only made them sign an undertaking form stating they “would go no-contact” and suspended Advik for a week.
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Ex threatened to leak photos
According to the friend, Advik, threatened the deceased by calling her day and night from several numbers. He did this and more by threatening to leak their private photos if she broke up with him. She had wanted to break up with him since October last year, but he made it difficult for her to do so, according to her friend.
Despite this, the deceased student did not approach the college’s Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), even though it was required under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace (2013). Neither the deceased student’s mentor nor the IRO told her to approach PoSH panel despite the mandated guidelines to do so.
‘Mental, not sexual harassment’
Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT)’s PR director, Dr Shradhanjali Nayak, said the deceased student’s complaint was not raised to PoSH panel as it was not sexual harassment and constituted only as mental harassment.
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Her friend told The Print that Advik allegedly slapped her a few times and she saw her crying on the phone while he verbally abused her from the other end. Another Nepalese student said the deceased student was under a lot of distress.
No briefings on student safety
Students were asked if there were any flyers about the ICC around the university campus but it was reported that there were none. The students said they also had no annual briefings by an external member.
According to KIIT’s website, it has an active PoSH committee with 12 female members and one external member whose contact has not been listed.