PESHAWAR, Jan 3: The parents of youths enrolled in an unrecognised private medical college of Abbottabad have called upon the government to take legal action against its owner for wasting three years of its students.

They have also asked the government to force the college owner to refund their children’s annual tuition fee.

Haji Ghulam Hussain, whose son Zahid is a student of Abbottabad International Medical College (AIMC), addressed a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club together with other students’ parents from Abbottabad, Mardan, D.I. Khan, Swat, Sialkote and Haripur.

Mr Hussain said that a legal notice had been sent to the college owner, Dr Ghazanfar, in this regard.

“For the past three, we have been investing money in the hope that our children will get an MBBS degree but instead their three years have been squandered,” Mr Hussain said.

Bashir Ahmed Gondal said that he had enrolled his son in the college only after its administration told him that the institution was accredited to the Hazara University and Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC).

Mr Gondal said the college prospectus deliberately misled students into thinking that some well-known politicians and notable professionals were on its board of governors. Senator Dr Azam Khan Swati, who was cited as a board governor, later denied on the floor of the Senate that he had anything to do with the private medical college, according to Mr Gondal.

The college has been charging students an annual tuition fee of Rs230,000. Sixty-four students had been enrolled in the college but even after three years not one of them had been allowed to sit for any examination as the institution had not yet earned accreditation from the PMDC.

“We were told by the college’s owner that the college will be recognised soon but three years have passed and the owner of the institution kept us in dark. His promises were false and now the future of our sons and daughters has become bleak,” Mr Gondal said.

Sher Zaman, another parent from Mardan, demanded that parents be compensated and the amount which they had been paying as tuition fee per year be refunded to them. He called for strict legal action against “unrecognised institutions” which were cheating students. Mr Zaman said although the AIMC students had protested against the college authorities no action had been taken yet.

Mr Zaman said that the parents of the aggrieved students would go to Islamabad and hold a demonstration there if the provincial government failed to help them.

The parents had come to know about the accreditation after the PMDC published public notices and warnings about some of the private medical colleges in Urdu- and English-language newspapers, he said.

“The provincial government should take strict action against private medical colleges which are not fulfilling the criteria of the PMDC and cheating students and their parents,” he added.