NEW DELHI: India has shut down a medical college in Indian-Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir after protests by extremist Hindu nationalist groups over the high number of Muslim students enrolled in the prestigious programme.
The National Medical Commission has revoked the licence of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute in the hilly Reasi district of Indian-occupied Kashmir, Al Jazeera reported.
The college’s inaugural batch of 50 students for the five-year MBBS programme, which began in November, included 42 Muslims, mostly residents of occupied Kashmir, seven Hindus, and one Sikh.
The institute, established by a Hindu religious charity and funded by the government, had launched its first MBBS programme with this batch.
Every year, more than two million Indian students sit for the NEET, a medical entrance examination conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) under the federal Ministry of Education, competing for roughly 120,000 MBBS seats.
Students typically prefer public medical colleges due to lower tuition fees, though admission cutoffs are often very high. Those who fall short of the cutoff but meet the minimum NTA score generally enroll in private institutions.
After the announcement of the college’s inaugural MBBS batch in November, local Hindu groups protested upon learning the religious composition of the students, demanding that Muslim candidates be excluded from admission.
The protests continued for several weeks, with demonstrators gathering outside the college gates daily and chanting slogans.
At the same time, some lawmakers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) submitted petitions to the Lieutenant Governor of occupied Kashmir, demanding that admissions to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute be limited to Hindu students only.
Amid the mounting protests, the National Medical Commission announced on January 6 that the college had failed to meet the minimum educational standards set by the government, resulting in the cancellation of its recognition.
According to the National Medical Commission, the college was short of teaching staff, number of beds, number of patients in outpatient departments, library and operating theatres.
Chief Minister of occupied Kashmir Omar Abdullah has alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allied Hindu groups were involved in campaigning against the admission of Muslims in the college.
It may be recalled that a US-based research group said on Tuesday that hate speech against minorities, including Muslims and Christians, rose by 13 percent in 2025 in India, with most incidents taking place in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governed states.
India Hate Lab reported 1,318 cases of hate speech in 2025, marking a steady rise from 1,165 incidents in 2024 and 668 in 2023.
According to the group, these incidents occurred at political gatherings, religious processions, protest rallies, and cultural events across the country.
Last December, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar faced criticism for pulling a woman doctor’s face veil during a graduation ceremony, an act widely shared on social media.
