Sanat Nagar is an upscale colony in Jammu & Kashmir’s capital city, Srinagar. The periphery of the locality stays abuzz through the day with eateries, where those in their 20s hang out, even in the State’s harsh winter.
With the iris starting to bloom on the walkways, a sign of spring, Nazia Akhter, 26, gingerly walks into one of the restaurants. She occupies a corner, to ensure that the conversation at the table is not overheard by people around. “I fear if I speak on record, it might impact my future and bring trouble to my family,” says Akhter. Like her batchmates, Akhter, who studied in one Srinagar’s Christian missionary schools, cannot prefix her name with ‘Dr.’, considered a prestigious symbol across India.
She is one of 256 students, of which 155 are women, who pursued their bachelor’s degrees in medicine, between 2014 and 2018 from Pakistan, and are yet to be recognised as doctors in India. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is scrutinising the credentials of all the students who pursued their MBBS or other degrees from colleges in Pakistan before 2018. Once this clearance comes through, the medical graduates will be eligible to take the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination, a test for those students with foreign degrees in medicine. When they clear this, they can be called doctors and practise freely.
The Pakistan degrees — MBBS, BDS, engineering, or any other — of those who joined courses after 2018, will not be considered, as per two separate orders in 2022. The National Medical Council (NMC) and the All India Council for Technical Education passed directives to this effect.
There were around 3,500 students from Kashmir, according to a parent-body estimate, who were studying in Pakistan when COVID-19 hit. Of these, around 700 were pursuing MBBS degrees. Many who secured admission between 2019-2022 were left with only one option: leaving Pakistan and forfeiting the fee paid.
Many students from Kashmir have been going to Pakistan to pursue medical degrees since 2002, when Pervez Musharraf was the President. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
The wait to wear a white coat
Akhtar joined a medical college in Pakistan’s Hyderabad in 2016 and returned in 2022, but her dream of wearing the white apron and stethoscope is fading, despite being from a batch before the cut-off period. Graduates say that the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) are carrying out intensive background checks. These have been both gruelling and without a seeming end.
“I have lost count of the number of appearances I have made before the local police station and the office of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), in Srinagar, since 2022. I have already made statements and answered questions in writing, around fees, expenses, and relations,” Akhter says. They have responded to Special Security Questionnaires (SSQ) too, she says. “If any student has indulged in illegal activities, take action as per law. But it looks like a collective punishment for daring to dream of becoming a doctor.” Many had to leave social obligations like weddings and funerals to respond to immediate appearance before the police officials, several students say.
Mehak Jabeen, 26, another student from Srinagar who completed her MBBS from a medical college in Pakistan’s Punjab, sat for the medical entrance examination in India in 2015-16, but could not qualify for a government college. She zeroed in on three options, which included private colleges in India, and various options in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
She explains that she opted for a college in Pakistan because, “No good private college in India charges less than ₹80 lakh to ₹1 crore for admission. In Bangladesh, we were worried about the language barrier and also the tuition fee was at least ₹40 lakh.” Pakistan was accessible in terms of the fee and proximity to home.
An MBBS degree does not cost more than ₹20 lakh or less, in Pakistan, if students qualify for scholarships, says Jabeen, also a student from a Christian missionary school. Based on merit and pre-qualifying tests, many students managed admission in the neighbouring country’s top medical colleges, including King Edward Medical University, Fatima Jinnah Medical University, and Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, all in Lahore, among others. Many are considered some of Asia’s top medical colleges.
“Pursuing the MBBS course as a student was as tough as anywhere in the world. I would study 10-14 hours a day. I belong to a family of doctors. I was under pressure to prove my worth,” Khalida Jan, 26, says. She says she was working so hard, she could not make it to meet her grandmother who died after she contracted COVID-19 in 2020.
“My mother also battled COVID on a ventilator all alone. We made a lot of sacrifices for this degree,” Jan, who studied in a Sindh medical college, says. “Temperatures would rise to 43 to 44 degrees (Celsius) in summer. It was unbearable, but we braved it all for this course. Now, we are not sure if we are doctors or not,” she adds.
Javeed Ahmad, 23, who secured admission in Pakistan in 2018, returned during the COVID lockdown, but could not return to Pakistan thereafter. “I couldn’t join college due to travel restrictions and the ban imposed by the NMC. I decided to shift to a college in Europe. Many others either returned to J&K or secured admissions in Central Asian colleges,” Ahmad says.
After the freeze in Indo-Pak relations in 2019, post the Pulwama attack, many students flew from Kashmir to Dubai and then to Pakistan to pursue their courses. When they came back to India, they were stopped by immigration. A few students claimed their “passports were impounded” for using the Dubai route.
Time lapse
Hoping against hope, Ishrat Jan, 27, maintains patients’ files at a small clinic in Srinagar. She is barred from wearing an apron or practising medicine at the medical facility. “I do small jobs at the clinic. However, I visit different hospitals to observe what medicines are prescribed, so that I stay in touch with the profession. This way, I keep my hopes alive to be able to wear the white coat again, once the security clearance comes,” Jan says.
Unlike Jan, many students in their late 20s have moved on, and are not pursuing the government’s go-ahead for them to take the qualifying exam. They work at shops or have their own businesses. For some, the security clearance has impacted other areas of life. One woman who was engaged to be married was cross-questioned by the police so much that her engagement broke.
“No one wants to be associated with me. I was shooed away by a prospective groom’s parents. They said they didn’t want any trouble. Spiteful relatives remark on our situation too. It’s a living hell,” Jabeen says. “There is not a single instance where a girl student was engaged in any illegal activity. I urge the government to speed up the security clearance process,” Jabeen adds.
India and Pakistan agreed to allow students from J&K to attend colleges in Pakistan in 2002, when Pervaiz Musharraf was President. Students’ exchange was seen as a major confidence building measure between the two countries and was in tune with the SAARC agreement too. Many students had even opened for medical colleges in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). However, such degrees were declared invalid in 2017 because of India’s position that PoK is not a part of Pakistan.
NIA reports
The security agencies’ strict background process was initiated after allegations that over the past decade, up to 17 local youths had been recruited by militants after acquiring travel documents as students. Many colleges in Pakistan had registered wards of separatists and slain militants too. According to a National Investigation Agency (NIA) chargesheet filed in 2024 in Srinagar, the money for admissions “was passed on to terrorist(s), stone pelters and overground workers for unlawful and terrorist activities”.
It surfaced during investigations of the NIA that the admissions in MBBS and other professional courses in Pakistan were “preferentially given to those students who were close family members or relatives of killed terrorists on the recommendations of members of Hurriyat and received by their counterparts in Pakistan”. It went on to say, “This was to boost morale and keep the pot of terror boiling in the Valley and infuse new spirit into the terror fold.”
The NIA is investigating Kashmir-based consultancies too, who they claimed “motivated gullible parents” aspiring for their children to study professional courses through these consultancies. It claimed that the students were made to appear in the National Talent Search (NTS) test at Hurriyat offices in Pakistan “as a dupe tactic to make them believe that they were writing a pre-qualifying test which would lead to their admission in professional colleges in Pakistan”.
Parents’ plea
In January this year, parents signed a joint letter, which they sent to the National Conference (NC) leader and Member Parliament (MP) Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi to raise the issue in Parliament. The memorandum puts forth their perspective.
“…Scores of medical/dental graduates admitted to different colleges in Pakistan prior to December 2018 are facing immense trauma in absence of security clearance…” the memorandum reads. The letter also highlights the mental trauma students are going through, with many on antidepressants.
“Professional careers are at peril besides mental wellbeing and social standing. As the due process continues, we are also facing several difficulties in the renewal of our passports,” it says, adding that some students who applied for renewal of their passports about a year ago have not yet got them.
The letter underscores that the sole purpose was to practise medicine and “serve the people of our home country with dedication”. It reiterated that, “We and our families are law abiding citizens of India and adhere to the Constitution of the country, and have no affiliation with any banned outfits. We and our families do not support any anti-national activities and our whole education abroad has been fully self-sponsored by our families and the corresponding supporting documents, which include bank statements.”
In Sanat Nagar, Akhter says her white apron has been gathering dust in her wardrobe. “Every time I see the stethoscope, which I bought full of dreams, I get anxious and angry. I hope this ends soon,” she says.
(Names changed to maintain confidentiality)
peerzada.ashiq@thehindu.co.in
This story was edited by Sunalini Mathew
Published - February 08, 2025 09:27 pm IST
