DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Sept 16: Students of the Gomal Medical College, Dera Ismail Khan, on Monday boycotted their classes against the decision of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) that the college would not be granted recognition.

The classrooms would remain locked up until the college was awarded the status of a medical college, student leaders said.

Classes of the college had been started in February 1998 on the self-finance basis. Having no suitable building to run the GMC, initially it started functioning in a gallery of central library of Gomal University, D.I.Khan.

Later, it was shifted to Dera Township near the under-construction Mufti Mehmood Memorial Hospital on Daraban Road and then in the building of Government Elementary College for Women, which was lying vacant. But the college always remained short of staff, equipments, space and other facilities.

A team of the PMDC had visited this college twice and having found no facilities required for the medical students turned down the request to grant recognition to the college.

The team also asked the NWFP Health Department to fulfil all the requirements for the recognition up to July 3, 2002, and said that in case of failure, the college would not be recognized.

This direction created unrest among the students, their parents, traders and some social organizations in D.I.Khan.

The NWFP governor during his visit to D.I.Khan in August this year, announced a Rs5 million grant for the GMC, but the amount has not been released so far.

It seemed in the light of steps taken by the provincial government that the PMDC would recognize the college, but the council through its notification published in news papers rejected the recognition request.

The students of fourth professional year told Dawn that though each pupil had paid over Rs85 million to the college under the self-finance scheme, still they were awaiting complete facilities required for them.

Posts of professors/assistant professors in the departments of pharmacology, bio-chemistry, forensic, pathology were still lying vacant and the serving teaching staff was totally incapable to handle students problems, they added.

They also voiced concern that if the college was not recognized, their MBBS degrees would be useless.