KIIT University

Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), an anomaly of KIIT, is a privately recognized university in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. It was founded in 1992 as Industrial Training Institute in Bhubaneswar with twelve students and two staff. The university was given the status of deemed university in 2004. Later, in 2017 it was renamed as Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology following the UGC order to drop the term “university” from the name for all the institutes granted the status of ‘Deemed to be Universities’. The university is a part of KIIT Society which is estimated to be worth US$1.3 billion as of 2020. The incumbent founder is Achyuta Samanta and Chancellor is Ashok Kumar Parija and the Vice-Chancellor is Saranjit Singh. The Campus is spread across 6,117.55 acres in Patia.

There is an emerging diplomatic issue for the University following the discovery of a 20 year-old female Nepali student’s body in her hostel in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha on the 16th of February 2025. The Hindu reported that the institute stated, ‘It is suspected that the girl was in a relationship with another student at KIIT and may have committed suicide for some reason. ’ Following the incident and subsequent student protests, KIIT has been accused of evicting a group of Nepali students from their hostel amid rising tensions on campus after the death of Prakriti Lamsal, a third-year B.Tech student. Later, KIIT claimed responsibility for the angering of students by asking Nepali students to return to the dorms. Nepal's Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli stated on X that he had dispatched two officers to counsel Nepali students there. The investigation is still going on.

BOOM had debunked the misinformation around KIIT like in February 2025, BOOM fact-checked a viral photo of Advik Srivastava’s father Manoj Srivastava,being shared as the father of Advik Srivastava. BOOM found that the man in the viral photo is not the father of Advik Srivastava, the accused in the KIIT incident involving the death of a female student. He further told us that his son is a minor studying in Lucknow, not Odisha.

In February 2025, BOOM fact checked a set of photos of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Manoj Srivastava as the father of Advik Srivastava, the accused arrested in connection with the death of another student at KIIT. BOOM confirmed that the man in the viral photos is former BJP Ayodhya district president, Manoj Srivastava, with no connection to the accused in the KIIT case.