UNIVERSITY hunger striker Roshini Mangalore has called off her protest - but says she will return next month.

The Indian-born former economics student claims the university has not allowed her to re-submit her PhD thesis.

The university, however, says that is untrue.

Mrs Mangalore pitched a tent outside the Department of Economics, in Alcuin College, on Friday morning, and said she would neither eat nor leave until she received "an acceptable response".

The tent carried posters saying "give me back ten years of my life" and "on hunger strike".

But now Mrs Mangalore, who had an uncomfortable and cold night on Friday, said she would halt the protest.

Her decision follows the threat of legal action by the university, but she added that she would return next month, when the student community arrived back on campus.

Most students are still away on their summer vacation.

"I am still not happy about what has happened," she told the Evening Press from her tent.

"The university has not dealt satisfactorily with my complaints. If the situation does not change, I will return when the students are back."

A spokeswoman for the university said: "The university has bent over backwards to help Mrs Mangalore.

"She has never re-submitted her PhD for re-examination, after it was submitted and referred (not judged to be of a high enough standard to receive the PhD) in 1998.

"She has been given a number of extended deadlines."

Updated: 10:31 Tuesday, September 25, 2001