PESHAWAR, May 1: Students of the Saidu Medical College, Swat, continued their hunger strike for the third consecutive day on Thursday.

Several ministers and MPAs had visited the camp and asked the students to discontinue their strike, but declined to call it off till their demands were accepted.

They were on a hunger strike since Tuesday in front of the Peshawar Press Club demanding of the government to provide medical facilities for their college, so that the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council could recognize it.

On Thursday, Irrigation Minister Hafiz Akhtar Ali also visited the camp where he held talks with the students that ended in failure.

The minister told them that he along with other MMA leaders would discuss the matter with the chief minister before May 5 to solve their problems. However, the students demanded immediate action.

Talking to reporters, the students said that Saidu

Medical College (SMC) lacked basic infrastructure that culminated in host of problems for them.

They said that the college’s laboratories and libraries were ill-equipped, and shortage of teachers had further aggravated the problem. Only one teacher in surgery department was required to teach all the students. Similarly, for orthopaedic and paeds subjects, there was no teachers.

The future of about 250 students, they said, was at stake, because the government was doing nothing to provide the college with basic facilities.

The students said that the government should immediately affiliate the SMC with the University of Peshawar.

The students said that the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, would never accord recognition to their college, because it didn’t fulfil the requirements.