The protesting groups, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal, argue that the medical college—established with donations to the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board and situated near the pilgrimage site at Katra—should reserve seats for Hindu students, since the funds supporting it originate from shrine visitors. BJP MLA R. S. Pathania from Udhampur backed the call, declaring that despite the college not receiving direct government funding, donations from devotees mean that seats should favour Hindu candidates.
College authorities and JKBOPEE officials counter that the admissions were conducted strictly in compliance with National Medical Commission guidelines, which mandate that all MBBS seats in the union territory—totalled at 1,685 across 13 colleges—be filled on the basis of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test merit list, reserving 85 % for UT domiciles and 15 % for national candidates. The medical college is not recognised as a minority-instituted body, hence religious reservation is legally impermissible.
The Veerbhumi report shows that the college received formal NMC approval on 8 September, and its list was drawn during a third counselling round after mainstream sessions concluded, owing to the late sanction. Officials note that in the pool of 5,865 UT-domicile candidates shortlisted by JKBOPEE, over 70 % belonged to the Muslim community from Kashmir, making it statistically likely that high-scoring candidates from that region filled seats.
The VHP’s Jammu and Kashmir president, Rajesh Gupta, asserted that “the management should correct its mistake and ensure in the next batch that the majority of students are Hindus,” going so far as to call the existing list “a conspiracy to Islamise the medical college.” Meanwhile the Bajrang Dal’s J&K head, Rakesh Bajrangi, accused JKBOPEE of bias and demanded that admissions should have been drawn from the central NEET pool—an option rejected by the college because the NMC allows central-pool admissions only for government institutes or deemed universities.
Critics argue that the controversy underscores deeper regional imbalances in higher education admissions. Although the Jammu division ostensibly offers around 900 medical seats compared to 675 for Kashmir, medical colleges in Jammu have in previous years been filled predominantly by Kashmiri students, owing to performance in entrance tests. In the engineering stream, the reverse trend applies, with more Jammu students enrolling.