Derecognized Kadapa medical college students climb electricity towers, AP Govt faces ‘suicide’ threats

Aggrieved medical students of Fatima medical college in Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh have resorted to movie style agitation climbing the electricity towers seeking justice to 20-month-old saga that is hitting local headlines daily.

What has triggered the suicidal move by the students was a Supreme Court verdict on Friday that dismissed the AP government’s memo seeking to accommodate Fatima College students nine each in 11 medical colleges of the state.

The original recognition to the college was cancelled rendering these students of 2015-16 batch of the college hit the streets and the Medical Council of India refused to allow increase in the number of seats in other colleges in the state, citing its usual administrative procedures.

With the court not allowing diverting these students to other colleges, most of them girls, their agitation on Sunday hit the headlines of the state with the students following the footsteps of recent movie “Khaidi No. 150” of Chiranjeevi, in which the desperate farmers enter the water pipes in protest bringing the entire water supply in the city to standstill.

The bench refused to the state government proposal to increase the seats this year and reduce them next year. Though the counsel for AP government, Gourav Benerjee, said the proposal was in the interest of the students and their future, the court declined to interfere in the issue.

The fate of 99 students of Fathima Institute of Medical Sciences (FIMS) in Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh, has been hanging in balance for the last 20 months and even the state Opposition leader Jaganmohan Reddy (Jagan) visited the students recently extending his support.

“Just to favour the college management of private universities, Naidu’s government has refused to forgo 100 seats in the next academic year as advised by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s judgement has obviously not been positive,” Jagan noted.

Ironic but it happened in a rude way for the students when they were abruptly told in April, 2016, almost nine months into their course, that their college was derecognised, and that their admissions were null and void.

The problem worsened when the MCI refused the state government’s proposal to relocate the students to other medical colleges across the state. The Supreme Court too dismissed a case filed by the Andhra Pradesh government on behalf of the students of FIMS last Friday.

Now the AP government is facing the “suicide” threats from the students with MCI in Delhi being placed far away from the scene of protests. Who will be responsible for the future of these students? Why didn’t the government, the MCI and courts stop the Fatima College not to take in students when their recognition was facing dilemma?