LAHORE, Aug 20: The King Edward Medical College students held a demonstration outside the chief warden's residence on Friday to protest against the sealing of the hostels' rooms.

Holding banners and placards, some 50 students chanted slogans against the college administration for taking action against the boarders on the pretext of flushing out 'illegal occupants.'

The KEMC officials and police raided the Broom, New, Main Hall and Hall Road hostels on Wednesday and sealed 37 rooms to remove illegal occupants believed to have links with a religious outfit.

The protesters criticized the administration for not serving notices on the students before taking action, which they said had created harassment among them. They urged the authorities concerned to immediately de-seal the rooms and take students into confidence before initiating such actions in the future.

Meanwhile, the hostels' administration has allowed all the boarders concerned to take their luggage and necessary items out of rooms. KEMC hostels' committee chairman Prof Dr Abdul Majeed and chief warden Prof Dr Abdul Qayyum will hear all the allottees individually in a day or two and decide whether to cancel their allotments or impose fine on them according to the nature of violation.

Prof Qayyum told Dawn that there were complaints that students and some doctors had accommodated their relatives and friends in hostels in violation of rules. He said the inspection team sealed 38 rooms at the Boys New Hostel, Broom Hostel and the Hall Road hostel where 'unauthorized' people were asleep.

Prof Qayyum said the inspection team sealed the rooms without asking the identity of the unauthorized persons and would interrogate allottees. "We want to make all the defaulters - students and doctors alike - realize their mistake," he added.

He claimed that they had to conduct the inspection, as there were complaints of thefts at hostel rooms. Hafiz Waqas, Dr Muhammad Arshad, Shafiq Ahsan and Ammar Hassan, leaders of the affected students, said the hostel administration had conducted the inspection at a time when MBBS second and third professional examinations were going on.

They said the students' books, clothes and even wallets were sealed inside their rooms due to which they were facing a great deal of inconvenience. The hostel administration, they said, should frame a proper procedure about the staying of guests of boarders. It should also take care of the hostels that were in a state of disrepair, they added.

When contacted, hostel committee chairman Prof Chaudhry said it was a routine checking. He said the hostel administration was conducting this checking semi-annually for the last many decades.