Vaishno Devi MBBS admission row: Sangharsh Samiti to hold protest on Nov 29
Sangharsh on Thursday held a meeting, where six teams were constituted to ensure larger participation for peaceful agitation of the civil society across Jammu
Amid row over admission to 42 Muslim students in first batch of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Sangharsh Samiti (SMVDSS) has called for dharna at Raghunath Chowk on November 29.
Sangharsh on Thursday held a meeting, where six teams were constituted to ensure larger participation for peaceful agitation of the civil society across Jammu. “Apart from a legal team, five other teams will reach out to traders, religious leaders, political parties, women and educational institutions,” said Samiti convenor Col (retd) SS Mankotia.
Earlier, Shiv Sena Dogra Front also held a demonstration on Thursday and demanded a probe by the anti-corruption bureau.
Led by its president Ashok Gupta, scores of Shiv Sena Dogra Front functionaries protested against the admission process at the medical college, which is operated by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, and raised slogans against it. “We demand a probe by the ACB into the admission process carried out by the Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examination (JKBOPEE) to admit Muslim students from Kashmir to the medical college run by the Hindu board of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi in the Katra area of Jammu,” Gupta told reporters here.
He claimed that the situation indicates a conspiracy to infiltrate a Hindu institution through official mechanisms, as 42 out of 50 admitted students belong to a specific community from the Valley. “The medical college is run on the donations of hundreds of devotees, particularly Hindus. The college is set up with donation money, but the tragedy is that we are using the donations of Hindus to produce doctors from the Kashmir Valley belonging to a particular community,” he alleged.
Lashing out at chief minister Omar Abdullah’s statement that merit should be the criterion for admissions rather than students’ religious identity, he said, “Such a criterion should have been applied to Muslim educational institutions, particularly Baba Ghulam Shah Budshah University, where reservation is fully given to Muslim students. But the act of Mata Vaishno Devi University was deliberately diluted to benefit the majority community in Jammu and Kashmir, in which no reservation was given to minority Hindus in J&K.”
Workers from the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) also protested against the decision. “We demand the scrapping of the list. We also demand an amendment in the act to declare Mata Vaishno Devi University and its medical college as a minority institution in J&K, as Hindus and Sikhs are minorities in J&K,” VHP leader Rajinder Kumar said.
The BJP and other Hindu groups have demanded the scrapping of the MBBS admission list of SMVDIME. The BJP has also submitted a memorandum to J&K lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha, seeking that admissions at the SMVDIME be limited to Hindu students and, if possible, handled by the National Medical Commission (NMC).
A protest led by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Sangharsh Samiti (SMVDSS) is scheduled for November 29 over the admission of 42 Muslim students to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence. The group claims a conspiracy to infiltrate a Hindu institution, demanding a probe into the admission process. Hindu organizations, including Shiv Sena and VHP, support the protests, calling for changes in admissions policies.