KARACHI, June 16: In an effort to pressure the authorities over their demands, the students of Sindh Medical College with suspended admissions went on a hunger strike “until death” on Monday.

The male and female students, who have been running from pillar to post for regularization of their admissions to the MBBS classes, vowed to continue their strike until the pending issues were resolved.

The students, who camped outside the Karachi Press Club, claimed that the government was indifferent to their problems even though they had been “defrauded” during the last three to five years by some staff of the SMC and health department.

This is the second time that the SMC students have mounted a hunger strike in front of the Karachi Press Club. On May 23, too, they had gone on a hunger strike, which they called off after 28 hours following interventions by provincial ministers and other legislators.

On May 26, Sindh’s Chief Minister, Ali Muhammad Maher, had informed a group of affected students that he had sympathies for them and was going to order the regularization of their admissions, according to the striking students.

However, no notification or order has yet been released in this regard.

Talking to newsmen, the students said they wanted immediate reinstatement, organization of the left-over examinations by Karachi University and removal of the college’s principal.

One of the female students claimed that they were first trapped in an organized way by the college staff and health department officials, including senior doctors holding various administrative posts, and now were being victimized.

The whole purpose of the dilly-dallying tactics of the high officials, besides some statements by the so-called professional groups, was to suppress the issue and save corrupt government officials who had managed to usurp millions of rupees under the garb of self-finance admissions.

The students were of the view that the college staff, right under the noses of different principals, had been issuing them college identity cards, while tuition fees, examination fees were also collected as per routine.

As a result they had been able to follow their academic pursuits without any interruption for years, besides clear-ing the professional examinations.

The students urged the chief minister to intervene and save their precious academic years. Otherwise they would be compelled to die, they claimed.

The CM, like his predecessors, should use the discretionary powers and order the regularization of their “disputed admissions” on humanitarian grounds, opined a mother of one striking student.