By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Sep 3: Reiterating their claim of anomalies in the just declared MBBS quota list, the KSU on Sunday threatened to resort to stringent measures if the state government failed to rectify the errors and issue a fresh list.
“We will not hesitate to adopt stringent measures to demand the rights of the Khasi students if the government fails to rectify the list,” KSU general secretary Donald Thabah said in a statement.
He said the Health department suddenly announced the allocation of MBBS seats but the names of the candidates in the quota list in the “open category” are the same ones in the screening list.
“Why only three local indigenous tribals got selected in the open category while the rest are from other communities?” Thabah questioned.
He made it clear that the “open category” is only meant for genuine residents of the state including the ST candidates.
“People have reached out to us to impress upon the government to take corrective measures since this is a blatant attempt to deny the local indigenous students the chance to pursue their MBBS studies,” he said.
He claimed that the antecedents of the nine non-tribal candidates selected in the “open category” were dubious.
“Students have to produce the Permanent Residential Certificate (PRC) from the state. But we found that a majority of the non-tribal candidates do not have the PRC and instead submitted the Provisional Permanent Residential Certificate (PPRC) which is valid for a period between three to 12 months,” Thabah said.
He further claimed that some of the non-tribal candidates did not submit birth certificate and even those who did obtained them from Garo Hills.
“As per procedure, the birth certificate should be enclosed with the court order. But no one had enclosed the court order,” Thabah said.
Citing an example, he said the birth certificate of one of the non-tribal students — Md Mahmadul Islam — was issued in 2012 to prove that he is a resident of Meghalaya.
“The birth certificate mentions that he was born in 2003. But the year of registration is 2002. Can a birth certificate be prepared one year before a person is born? It looks like they already knew that this person will be born the following year,” Thabah said.
In case of another non-tribal student, documents from Bihar and Rajasthan, including the birth certificate, were submitted whereas the candidate got his PPRC from Thangskai village in East Khasi Hills.
Thabah also said that the three non-tribal candidates in the open category waiting list do not have proper documents to show they are permanent resident of Meghalaya.
“These are some of the discrepancies which only prove that even genuine non-tribals from the state were denied by the state government to pursue their MBBS studies through the state quota,” Thabah said.
He pointed out that the two Khasi students in serial number 1 and 2 in the MBBS list for the Khasi-Jaintia category should have been included in the open category in serial number 6 and 7.
“This is an attempt by the state government to deny the rights of those students who are in the waiting list of the Khasi-Jaintia category to pursue their MBBS studies.”
Referring to the statement of Health Minister, Ampareen Lyngdoh that the state got 10 additional seats, Thabah said the number of MBBS seats allotted last year was 87 last year and this year it should have been 97.
“As per the quota list, only 92 candidates have been selected. What about the five seats that are missing from the list?” he questioned.