‘Shut down college, shift students elsewhere’
Jammu; Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday said that the students admitted to the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence had got it purely on merit, and denounced those who protested against it. He also suggested shutting the institution and moving the students to other government medical colleges. “Why are the people protesting again today? On what basis are they protesting? Those children worked hard to get their seats. No one did them any favour, neither me nor the university. They passed the exams and got their seats.
“If you do not want to have them there, then adjust them somewhere else,” he said. Abdullah said no student would want to study at the university, considering the prevailing atmosphere, and that if he were their parent, he would be afraid of sending them there. “By all means, the Union Ministry of Health should shift them to some other medical college of ours so that they can continue their education,” the chief minister told reporters here. Abdullah’s remarks came in response to a series of protests by the BJP-supported Sangharsh Samiti, a recently formed conglomeration of various right-wing organisations. The outfit was formed shortly after the admission for the inaugural MBBS batch of 50 students was completed in November through the NEET. The batch includes 42 Muslim students, mostly from Kashmir, seven Hindu students from Jammu, and one Sikh. “We do not want to send them to a place where so much politics is being done. Close that medical college. That medical college is not worth opening. Close it. And these children, adjust them in some other government medical college of ours,” Abdullah said. On the future of sports after the J&K U-16 cricket team