The issue isn’t just India-Nepal relations. The issue isn’t just the racist treatment of international students by university authorities. The issue isn’t just the desperate backtracking of an inhuman stance by a private university.

At its heart there is only one issue. How do institutions respond when women complain about harassment?

Prakriti Lamsal, a 20-year-old third year BTech student from Nepal at the Kalinga Institute of Technology (KIIT) was being harassed and blackmailed allegedly by an ex-boyfriend, fellow student, 21-year-old Advik Srivastava. She reportedly complained to the international relations officer who summoned Advik, and let him off with a warning.

How differently everything could have turned out had the university taken Prakriti’s complaint seriously. A suspension pending an internal investigation at the very least. Depending on what Prakriti revealed to the officer, perhaps even a police complaint.

“Institutions should be the first rank of redress and it is their duty to initiate inhouse or police proceedings against the perpetrator,” says senior advocate Indira Jaising.

“Had the officer taken action immediately, she would have been safe,” adds Yubraj Ghimire, editor of Desh Sanchar, an online multimedia news platform from Kathmandu.

Instead, on Sunday afternoon Prakriti was found dead, apparently by suicide, in her hostel room. In a police complaint filed by her cousin Siddhant Sigdel, also a student at KIIT, he says Prakriti had been subjected to continuous harassment by Advik Srivastava, which pushed her to take her life. An audio clip purportedly of the two of them certainly seems to indicate a highly toxic and controlling relationship by........

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