MULTAN, April 24: Local chapter of the Pakistan Medical Association staged a rally here on Thursday in protest against the proposed affiliation of the Nishtar Medical College with the University of Health Sciences.

Scores of NMC students also participated in the protest organized in front of the main gate of the Nishtar Medical College and Hospital.

PMA’s Punjab president Dr Syed Mohammed Ali, its Multan chapter president, Dr Shaista Samad, and general secretary Dr Shahid Rao were prominent among the protesters.

The participants in the rally vowed to extend the protest across the province if the NMC board of studies recommended NMC’s affiliation with the ‘controversial’ university.

Speaking to the protesters, the PMA president urged the Nishtar authorities not to succumb to the pressures to affiliate the college with the UHS.

Expressing concern over the future of students who would be awarded degrees by the UHS, the PMA leader said the UHS was not a recognized university while the universities with which the medical colleges were affiliated at present had traversed a long way to establish their reputation world over in the medical association.

He said when the Bahauddin Zakariya University of Multan and the Islamia University of Bahawalpur were not in existence, the NMC students had to travel to Punjab University, Lahore, for the resolution of petty issues. “Students of this part of the province remained deprived of positions and distinctions until the affiliation of their medical college with the local universities,” he said.