MOSCOW: Angry Indian students in St. Petersburg protested lack of support from Indian authorities for their demands for more security following the murder of a fellow student last Sunday.

The body of Nitesh Kumar Singh, a sixth-year student at the Mechnikov Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, will be flown to India via Moscow on Friday. He was stabbed several times by unidentified attackers near his dormitory.

On Wednesday night, dozens of students blocked the car of Indian Consul-General Jordana D. Pavel as she was leaving the Academy after meeting the Indian student body. They were angry she failed to respond to their grievances.

"She could not answer any of our questions," said Amar, a postgraduate paediatrics student. Indian students are demanding that a police post be set up and a video camera installed outside the dormitory, where Nitesh was killed. Five months ago another student, Kishore Kumar Anjangi, 23, was stabbed by two assailants in the same place. No one has been detained. Students complained that the Indian Consulate had turned a deaf ear to their complaints.

"We called them on the night Nitesh was killed so that they could help us get into the hospital where he was taken, but they said they could not help," Amar told The Hindu on telephone from St. Petersburg.

He denied the Ministry of External Affairs claim in New Delhi that the Indian Consulate was in close touch with Indian students in St. Petersburg .

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