MBBS admission row: Shiv Sena Dogra front holds protest in Jammu, demands ACB probe

The Shiv Sena Dogra Front on Thursday held a demonstration against the grant of majority seats in MBBS to Muslim students from Kashmir at a medical college in the Reasi district, and demanded a probe by the Anti-Corruption Bureau, alleging there was a major conspiracy against the educational institution.

This year, the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME) has been sanctioned 50 MBBS seats. The admission of 42 Muslim students in the first batch for the 2025–26 academic year has sparked controversy, with right-wing Hindu groups questioning the admissions process and calling for the grant of 'minority institution' status to the newly established college.

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 Anti-Corruption Bureau 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 in the country. 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 Badshah 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 of the Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examination (JKBOPEE) to admit Muslim students to the medical college administered by the Hindu board.

“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 Jammu and Kashmir, as Hindus and Sikhs are minorities in J-K,” VHP leader Rajinder Kumar said.

President of Sangharsh Samiti, Surinder Singh Jamwal, expressed concerns for the Hindu community in Katra, saying, “When donations from Hindus are given to the Mata, why was our child given so few seats in the state university? We have no problem with anyone, but at the very least, our child should have been allotted more seats.”

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).

Mahajan, however, noted that the NMC conducts counselling for only 15 per cent of government medical college vacancies, while SMVDIME is a private college.

Protests have occurred in various organisations across Jammu, Katra, Reasi, Kathua, and Udhampur, demanding that SMVDIME be designated as a minority institution for Hindu-only admissions in Jammu and Kashmir.