Katra: A major controversy has erupted in Jammu after the admission list for the first batch of the newly established Shri Mata Vaishnodevi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVIME) revealed that nearly 90% of the selected students belong to the Muslim community from Kashmir. The development has triggered strong protests from organisations affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), particularly the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal, who have demanded that the admissions be scrapped and a fresh list issued.
The protests, which began earlier this week, intensified outside the Katra-based medical institute, with demonstrators burning an effigy of the Chief Executive Officer of the Vaishno Devi Shrine Board. The outfits argue that the institution, built with donations from devotees of the Vaishno Devi shrine, should not have a student intake dominated by Muslim candidates. According to them, the college ought to reserve seats for Hindu students to maintain what they describe as the “sentiments of the pilgrims.”
Rajesh Gupta, VHP’s president for Jammu & Kashmir, said the college must “pause admissions for the 2025–26 academic year” and rectify what he called the “mistake” of selecting an overwhelmingly Muslim batch. He urged the management to ensure that most students selected next year are Hindus.
Similarly, Bajrang Dal’s J&K President, Rakesh Bajrangi, accused the J&K Board of Professional Entrance Examinations (JKBOPEE) of bias. He argued that the admissions should have been made from the central NEET pool to draw candidates from across India, given the nationwide contributions of devotees to the shrine.
“We have no objection to Kashmiri Muslim candidates studying anywhere else,” Bajrangi said, “but seats in the Vaishno Devi medical college must be reserved for Hindu students since the institution has been built using shrine donations.”
The protest also received political backing from BJP MLA of Udhampur, R.S. Pathania, who said the college did not take “a single penny” from the government and depends solely on donations from Vaishno Devi pilgrims. He claimed that the issue was linked to the “faith and sentiments” of the devotees and stressed that Hindu candidates should be given preference.
Pathania argued that because the institution operates on public religious donations, the admission process should reflect the identity and expectations of the donor community.
However, officials involved in the process dismissed the allegations of bias. They stated that the admissions were carried out strictly as per National Medical Council (NMC) guidelines, which mandate that selections for all medical colleges in J&K, across 1,685 seats, must be based on NEET merit lists.
The controversy began when JKBOPEE cleared a list of 50 candidates for the Vaishno Devi college, 42 of whom hailed from Kashmir and eight from Jammu. Among these, 36 candidates have already taken admission, including three from the Jammu region.
Authorities clarified that the admissions for SMVIME started late and were conducted after the third round of counselling. JKBOPEE had shortlisted 5,865 domicile candidates for 13 medical colleges in the Union Territory, inviting 2,000 for counselling. Around 70% of those invited were from the Muslim community because they had higher NEET scores, officials added.
They also pointed out that such trends are not new: in recent years, a majority of the nearly 900 medical seats in the Jammu region have been filled by students from Kashmir, while engineering seats are predominantly occupied by students from Jammu. Additionally, 87 candidates from Jammu secured admissions this year across five government medical colleges in Kashmir, mostly through reserved categories such as SC/ST, EWS and border area residents.
Rattan Lal Gupta, Jammu province president of the National Conference, placed the responsibility on the Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, saying that if the institution wanted to prioritise Hindu students, it should have formally applied for minority status. He noted that because the college lacked such classification, JKBOPEE had no option but to admit students purely on merit.
