Police on Wednesday thrashed, used water cannons and took several medical students into custody after their protest outside the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) building in Islamabad intensified, 24NewsHD TV channel reported.

Thousands of protesting students invaded Srinagar Highway and held a sit-in there, blocking the road for traffic. 

The students said they would not leave until and unless their demands were met. They complained that so far no one from the PMC had met them to listen to their grievances.

They said the entire PMC staff was absent from duties today so that they did not have to take pains to listen to their complaints.  

Earlier, PMC had blacklisted several medical institutions of Ukraine, China and Kyrgyzstan, putting the future of over 10,000 Pakistani students at stake. 

Of 8,000 medical students who are studying at Kyrgyzstan’s institutions, 60 percent are females. PMC has blacklisted Kyrgyzstan’s all medical institutions.

The protesting students were of the view that since they had got admissions in foreign colleges and universities under the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) rules, therefore, the PMC should now certify their degrees under the same rules. 

They called for applying the rules framed after the establishment of PMC to the fresh batch of students. 

They further said that they had been asked to return to Pakistan and resume their studies here, but that would cost them around Rs6 million. 

On the other hand, a spokesman for the PMC has announced that the Commission will recognise the degrees of only those foreign qualified students who meet their criterion. 

He explained the reason why medical institutions of Kyrgyzstan, China and Ukraine had been blacklisted was that they did not come up to the required standards. “Some of the courses have not been included in the syllabuses of these institutions, which led PMC to blacklist them,” he elaborated.