Medical students climb university building, threaten suicide
Synopsis
The medical students of Fathima Medical College staged a protest at NTR Health University They climbed the Academic building and threatened to commit suicide 100 students had lost their seats as their admissions as the college had no approval from MCI
Tension prevailed at the NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS) campus after several medical students from the Fathima Institute of Medical Sciences (FIMS), Katapa climbed the academic building and threatened to jump down.
The students threatened to commit mass suicide if the State government does not help them in getting admission to any other medical colleges with retrospective effect from 2015-16.
As many as 100 students got admissions in FIMS in the 2015-16 batch. As there was no approval from Medical Council of India (MCI) for the seats in that academic year, the Supreme Court cancelled their admissions 10 months after the commencement of the academic year.
Though the Andhra government had initially assured to accommodate all the 100 students in 10 medical colleges, it later went back on its promise, citing the court verdict.
On Wednesday six of the protesting students and a parent climbed up to the top of the academic block and threatened to commit suicide.
The students secured admission for the 2015-16 batch in September as part of the third and final counselling. The college did not have permission either from the MCI or the High Court during the first and second counselling.
The college management secured interim orders from High Court and went ahead with counselling process admitting students under category A and B along with the NRI quota. The MCI cancelled the admissions later and the admission scam at Fathima Medical College came to the fore after the High Court dismissed the case on April 23 this year. Later, the Supreme Court too upheld the HC decision.
The students blame the college management and the NTRUHS which had approved their admission at the time of counselling and later cancelled it. The students have been fighting since then and grieve that they lost two academic years of 2015-16 and 2016-17.
The Health Minister Kamineni promised to accommodate them in other medical colleges with 10 students per college, but that didn’t happen. At present their file is with Health Minister J.P. Nadda and the students demand CM to intervene on their behalf.
They couldn’t get the permission to meet the CM and so had climbed the University building and threatened to commit suicide.
The government promised to reimburse their fees but the students demand that they should be accommodated in other medical colleges so that their academic years would not be lost. The police tried to control the situation and the University is organising talks with the students.