KARACHI, May 21: The medical students, who were debarred from appearing in the MBBS examinations-2003, as the Sindh Medical College authorities had challenged the legitimacy of their year-long affiliation with the college, have appealed to the high ups in the country to take a compassionate view of their cases.

At a press conference, held on Wednesday, the representatives of the students, appealed to the president, prime minister, Sindh governor and chief minister and other concerned, for taking sympathetic view regarding the career of the students and to save them from being ruined.

“Our only fault is that we got tempted by dubious assurances by college staff, who acted with the connivance of their superiors and fetched millions of rupees from us in the name of admission”, alleged those who called the press conference.

The controversial students of the SMC, who also staged a demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club, same day, said if government did not take remedial measures within 48 hours, they would stage a till-death hunger-strike for regularization of their admissions and conduct of professional examinations, accordingly.

Reportedly, over 100 students had been detected, studying at the SMC on the basis of “fake admissions” or by “using fraudulent means”, for last three to five years. The cases were detected, either by the then governor’s inspection team, or by the college principal, and consequently their examination forms for different MBBS professional examinations were not processed or forwarded to the University of Karachi.

After the action by the college authorities, the students of third, fourth and fifth years, some of whom have also appeared in theory examinations, in line with a court decision, find themselves in trouble as they do not see any reason for such belated punitive action.

“We studied properly and cleared different MBBS examinations during the years, without any interruption, but were being made to suffer now, which was also causing social and other problems for us and our family members”, the students added.

After being allegedly involved in getting admissions on ‘fake grounds’ in the SMC, do they deserve any sympathetic considerations?, when asked, the students replied that they were not the only culprits, as they were contacted, in an organized way, by the college staff at the behest of college authorities and were made to pay Rs 4-5 lakhs for each seat, under the “self-finance” or other provisions.

“Majority of the affected students hold genuine educational documents and have put five to six precious years of their lives for academic purposes. We would like to ask the authorities, were they sleeping for more than five years and have suddenly waken up now to humiliate and throw out the students from college”, some students, on condition of anonymity said.

They alleged that health department was flouting the court orders and had failed to give its decisions in the light of recommendations of its three-member enquiry committee.

They challenged the impartiality of the latest enquiry committee, alleging that it included a couple of persons who had initially declared the students guilty of using unfair means and violating the eligibility criteria.

The students blamed the principal of SMC, his predecessors and some senior teaching and administrative staff members, for exploiting the students, seeking admissions to government-run medical colleges.

They held that no action was being taken against the other characters of this sad story. “We have suffered enough at the hands of college authorities, provincial health department and the KU, while other people related to the development are allowed to go free”, they pointed out.