After a long battle of eight months, an Odisha lecturer breathed his last. The teacher was allegedly beaten up by one of his students in February 2023 and the teacher succumbed to injuries after an eight-month-long battle at a hospital, his family members said on October 25, Wednesday, as stated in a report by PTI.

The deceased is identified as Amit Barik who was working as a lecturer at PKSS Degree College in the Katapalli area in Jharsuguda district while the accused is a degree student of the same college. Giving more details, a family member of the deceased said, "The accused student used to regularly come late to the class. On February 22, when he had come late to the class, Amit Barik had asked the student to meet the principal before entering the class. This led to an argument between them, during which the enraged student hit the teacher with bare hands in front of the whole class."

"In that incident, Amit Barik sustained serious injuries on his head. He was first admitted to the Jharsuguda district headquarters hospital and then shifted to VIMSAR, Burla, where he succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday (October 24) night," he said, adding the lecturer's marriage had been fixed before the incident took place.

After becoming aware of the information, the local police arrested the accused student on the same day of the incident and produced him before the court. He is currently on bail, said the Jharsuguda Sub-divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Nirmal Mohapatra, as stated in a report by PTI.

Further, SDPO said "Today, we received the information that the lecturer died while undergoing treatment. Now, we will approach the court to turn the case from 307 (attempt to murder) to 302 (murder) of IPC. As per the direction of the court, further action will be taken," he added.