Rashtriya Bajrang Dal seeks reservation for Hindus in shrine board medical college

The Rashtriya Bajrang Dal on Thursday took out a march here to protest against the admission of 42 Muslim students, mostly from Kashmir, in the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence and demanded seat reservation at the institute for Hindus.

The political row erupted after the medical college completed admissions through the NEET merit list earlier this month. It admitted students and allocated 85 per cent of its seats to Jammu and Kashmir residents.

The right-wing outfit termed these admissions a “conspiracy to dominate the medical college run on the donations of lakhs of Hindus of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi temple” and demanded a probe into the selection process.

Led by Dal chief Rakesh Kumar, scores of protesters assembled under its banner in the heart of the city and took out the march towards Indira Chowk, officials said.

They raised slogans, demanding “justice” for the Hindu community and against Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, and later dispersed peacefully. They also set fire to an effigy of the chief minister and the board.

“How can this institute be diluted and dominated by one community? It needs a probe,” Kumar told reporters here, referring to the composition of the intake at the institute. He said the LG’s administration and the central government should give the community justice by reserving seats for its students, as is done in other Muslim and Sikh institutions.

“The government failed to do away with these admissions by shifting Muslim students to other institutions and bringing Hindu students from other colleges to admit them here. We want justice. If it is not given, we will resort to a major region-wide agitation,” he said.

Lashing out at the chief minister for his statement that the shrine board should pay the government the land cost and stop receiving grant-in-aid, Kumar alleged that Abdullah behaves like a religious leader of Muslims of Kashmir rather than the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. “I feel ashamed at the statement by the chief minister about paying back the land cost. Land was given to Muslim-run institutions like Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University and Islamic University, along with grants-in-aid, and reservations have been made for Muslim students. How can land given to Vaishno Devi University mean that 42 Muslim students would be admitted out of a total of 50 seats, while Hindus in their own college get just seven seats?” he asked.

Omar earlier criticised attempts to seek religious segregation in admissions at the college, asserting that merit alone determines selection. “If you want the distribution of seats on the basis of religion, then you must stop taking grant-in-aid and the land given free of cost; you must pay for both. Only then can you change the university rules to reserve seats for one religion. We will have no objection to that,” he said.