LARKANA: Protesting over the alleged insulting behaviour of certain professors during the ongoing examinations of the first, second, fourth and final years of the MBBS, students of the Chandka Medical College (CMC) Larkana sealed the main gate of the campus and refused to take examinations on Wednesday.

They shouted slogans against the teaching faculty during the demonstration and did not allow anyone to enter the campus.

Realising the gravity of the situation, Vice Chancellor Prof Ghulam Asghar Channa of the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University (SMBBMU), Larkana, has asked Prof Shahid Jamal Siddiqui, Dr Muhammed Hassan Shaikh and Dr Hifaz Abro to negotiate with the protesters.

The students, the sources said, were ready to sit in the examination and face the disciplinary committee’s action provided that Prof Hakim Abro, a member of the vigilance committee, was removed from the body. They feared that Prof Abro could fail them in the examinations over personal enmity. They threatened to move court against composition of the vigilance committee, they said.

Due to the stand-off between Prof Hakim Abro, Prof K. Das and Dr Akbar Bhutto and the students, a portion of surgery-II paper of the final year known as short essay question (SEQ) remained unsolved on Monday, the second paper of fourth year’s ENT was cancelled on Tuesday and today (Wednesday) the OSPE (objective structured practical exam­ination) was cancelled. The OSPE of the second year MBBS was scheduled for Thursday.

The invigilators on Monday collected all 260 copies of the students who had solved the first portion of surgery-II. They (invigilators) were reluctant to return the copies for solving the remaining portion. While the students press the examiners to return copies so that they could solve the remaining portion ie., SEQ.

Initial talks held with the students by a team of professors, including Sikandar Mughal Registrar of the SMBBMU, CMC Principal Saifullah Jamro, K. Das and the vice principal of the CMC bore no fruit. Also the mid night talks on Tuesday held at the VC Secretariat remained inconclusive, sources said.

Students identified as Muzammil Abbasi and Asif Chandio while talking to Dawn alleged that Prof Hakim Abro was issuing life threats to them. But the prof denies.

The students met the Larkana SSP late on Tuesday and in an application called for measures on the campus to continue their scheduled examination. The SSP marked the application to the SHO Rehmatpur police station for necessary and legal action.

When contacted, Prof Hakim Ali Abro told ‘Dawn’ on Wednesday that during the examination of theory paper of Surgery-II, he, as a member of the vigilance committee, accompanied with Examination Controller Dr Akbar Bhutto and Prof K.Das, asked Muzammil Abbasi and another student to stop cheating and talking to others, but they defied the instructions. Muzammil Abbasi was again asked to behave, but he tried to become over smart and insulted the professors. Any way they finished the first part of the examination, he said.

The students had misbehaved with the professors and insulted him, he said, vowing that he would not permit them to solve papers by cheating. This was the only reason that they were demanding to exclude his name from the vigilance committee.

When asked if the standoff continued, it would harm the career of the students, he said he had voluntarily separated from the vigilance committee, but “we cannot afford insult of the professors”. Regarding Thursday’s paper, he said students would definitely adopt the strategy of boycotting it.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2015