{"id":1146556,"date":"2026-01-15T18:35:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T13:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.app.com.pk\/?p=1146556"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:35:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T13:35:55","slug":"india-revokes-recognition-of-kashmir-medical-college-after-muslim-students-dominate-admissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/2026\/01\/15\/india-revokes-recognition-of-kashmir-medical-college-after-muslim-students-dominate-admissions\/","title":{"rendered":"India revokes recognition of Kashmir medical college after Muslim students dominate admissions"},"content":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD, Jan 15 (APP):India has withdrawn recognition of a medical college in Indian-Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIoJK) after protests by right-wing Hindu groups over Muslim students securing most admissions, Al Jazeera reported.<\/div>\n
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According to Al Jazeera, The National Medical Commission (NMC), the federal regulator for medical education, on January 6 cancelled accreditation of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute (SMVDMI) in Reasi district near the Pir Panjal range. The move followed objections to the overwhelming presence of Muslim candidates in the programme. Hindu groups insisted that Muslims shouldn\u2019t benefit from institutions funded by Hindu charity.<\/div>\n
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Al Jazeera reported that of the 50 students admitted to the inaugural MBBS programme at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute in November, 42 were Muslims, mostly from Kashmir, while seven were Hindus and one a Sikh. The private college was established by a Hindu religious trust with partial government funding.<\/div>\n
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Admissions to medical colleges in India are based on the National Entrance Examination Test (NEET), conducted by the federal Ministry of Education\u2019s National Testing Agency (NTA). Each year, more than two million students compete for about 120,000 MBBS seats. Public colleges, with lower fees but higher cutoffs, are most sought after, while those meeting only the minimum NTA threshold usually enroll in private institutions.<\/div>\n
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Eighteen-year-old Saniya Jan from Baramulla, Kashmir, said she was overwhelmed with joy after clearing the NEET exam, which made her eligible to study medicine. She opted for Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute (SMVDMI) during counselling, as the college 316km from her home was relatively accessible compared to other options for Kashmiri students.<\/div>\n
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Her parents accompanied her to Reasi when classes began in November. \u201cMy daughter has been a topper since childhood\u2026 she worked hard to earn a medical seat,\u201d her father, Gazanfar Ahmad, told Al Jazeera.<\/div>\n
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But things did not go as planned. Local Hindu groups staged demonstrations after learning that most students in the inaugural MBBS batch at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute were Muslims. Protesters argued that, as the college was funded largely through offerings at the Mata Vaishno Devi Temple, Muslim students had \u201cno business being there.\u201d The agitation continued for weeks, with crowds gathering daily outside the college gates and raising slogans.<\/div>\n
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Al Jazeera reported that legislators from Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata Party petitioned Kashmir\u2019s lieutenant governor to reserve admissions at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute exclusively for Hindu students. In the following days, their demands escalated to calling for the college\u2019s closure.<\/div>\n
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On January 6, the National Medical Commission announced it had revoked the authorisation of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute, citing failure to meet government standards for medical education.<\/div>\n
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The regulator pointed to deficiencies in faculty strength, hospital bed occupancy, patient flow, libraries and operating theatres. A day later, the college\u2019s \u201cletter of permission\u201d allowing it to operate was also withdrawn.<\/div>\n
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\u2018The college was good\u2019<\/div>\n
But most students Al Jazeera talked to said they did not see any shortcomings in the college and that it was well- equipped to run the medical course. \u201cI don\u2019t think the college lacked resources,\u201d Jahan, a student who only gave her second name, said. \u201cWe have seen other colleges. Some of them only have one cadaver per batch, while this college has four of them. Every student got an opportunity to dissect that cadaver individually.\u201d<\/div>\n
Rafiq, a student who only gave his second name, said that he had cousins in sought-after government medical colleges in Srinagar, the biggest city in IIoJK. \u201cEven they don\u2019t have the kind of facilities that we had here,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
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Saniya\u2019s father, Ahmad, also told Al Jazeera that when he dropped her off at the college, \u201ceverything seemed normal\u201d.<\/div>\n
\u201cThe college was good. The faculty was supportive. It looked like no one cared about religion inside the campus,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
Zafar Choudhary, a political analyst based in Jammu, questioned how the medical regulatory body had sanctioned the college\u2019s authorisation if there was an infrastructural deficit. \u201cLogic dictates that their infrastructure would have only improved since the classes started. So we don\u2019t know how these deficiencies arose all of a sudden,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/div>\n
Choudhary said the demand of the Hindu groups was \u201cabsurd\u201d given that selections into medical colleges in India are based on religion-neutral terms. \u201cThere is a system in place that determines it. A student is supposed to give preference, and a lot of parameters are factored in before the admission lists are announced. When students are asked for their choices, they give multiple selections rather than one. So how is it their fault?\u201d he asked.<\/div>\n
Al Jazeera reached out to SMVDMI\u2019s executive head, Yashpal Sharma, via telephone for comments. He did not respond to calls or text messages. The college has issued no public statement since the revocation of its authorisation to offer medical courses.<\/div>\n
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\u2018They turned merit into religion\u2019<\/div>\n
Meanwhile, students at SMVDMI have packed their belongings and returned home.<\/div>\n
The BJP insists it never claimed that Muslim students were unwelcome at SMVDMI, but encouraged people to recognise the \u201clegitimate sentiments\u201d that millions of Hindu devotees felt towards the temple trust that founded it. \u201cThis college is named after Mata Vaishno Devi, and there are millions of devotees whose religious emotions are strongly attached to this shrine,\u201d BJP\u2019s spokesman in Kashmir, Altaf Thakur, told Al Jazeera. \u201cThe college recognition was withdrawn because NMC found several shortcomings.<\/div>\n
Last week, Omar Abdullah, chief minister of IIOJK,\u00a0 announced that SMVDMI students would not be made to \u201csuffer due to NMC\u2019s decision\u201d and they would be offered admissions in other colleges in the region. \u201cThese children cleared the National Entrance Examination Test, and it is our legal responsibility to adjust them.<\/div>\n
Abdullah condemned the BJP and its allied Hindu groups for their campaign against Muslims joining the college.<\/div>\n
Tanvir Sadiq, a regional legislator belonging to Abdullah\u2019s National Conference party, said that the university that the medical college is part of received more than $13m in government aid since 2017 \u2013 making all Kashmiris, and not donors to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine \u2013 stakeholders. \u201cThis means that anyone who is lawfully domiciled in [Indian-Illegally Occupied Jammu and\u00a0 Kashmir] can go and study there.<\/div>\n
Nasir Khuehami, who heads the Jammu and Kashmir Students\u2019 Association, told Al Jazeera the Hindu versus Muslim narrative threatened to \u201ccommunalise\u201d the region\u2019s education sector. \u201cThe narrative that because the college is run by one particular community, only students\u00a0from that community alone will study there, is dangerous,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
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ISLAMABAD, Jan 15 (APP):India has withdrawn recognition of a medical college in Indian-Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIoJK) after protests by right-wing Hindu groups over Muslim students securing most admissions, Al Jazeera reported. According to Al Jazeera, The National Medical Commission (NMC), the federal regulator for medical education, on January 6 cancelled accreditation of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1146558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pmpro_default_level":"","_speechable_audio":"","_speechable_word_timings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1501,4037],"post_template":[],"top_category":[],"class_list":["post-1146556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-iiojk","tag-nmc","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1146556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1146558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1146556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1146556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1146556"},{"taxonomy":"post_template","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_template?post=1146556"},{"taxonomy":"top_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.app.com.pk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/top_category?post=1146556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}