Srinagar Lok Sabha MP Ruhullah Mehdi on Sunday criticised the Jammu and Kashmir administration over the handling of the ongoing protest by medical interns seeking an enhanced stipend, claiming that government college principals are coercing them to end their indefinite strike a day after the health minister called their demands “genuine”.Mehdi, who recently announced his resignation from the ruling National Conference, sent separate letters to Jammu and Kashmir Health Minister Sakina Itoo and the principals of the medical colleges seeking an explanation.
"Something has changed in the last few days, and I would like to know from you what it is. For a week, this was a dispute conducted in the open. The interns stated their case, you accepted it was genuine, the chief minister's advisor gave a date,” he said in the letter to Itoo.
"Now I am told that principals of our medical colleges have begun warning interns of consequences if they do not return to duty. That is not a change in the government's position. It is a change in its method," he added.
The MP questioned on whose instruction the principals were allegedly asking the interns to end their protest.
"If it has come from the department, I would like to know who authorised it and on what reasoning. If it has not, if Principals are acting on their own reading of what the Government wants from them then that too is something you should want to know, and to correct," he said.
"A government that has publicly called a demand genuine, and privately set its institutional heads to pressuring the people making it, is speaking in two voices. That will be noticed, and it will cost more than the stipend ever would," he added.
He asserted that there are young people who have given nine years to becoming doctors and “who staff our casualty wards through the night”.
"To protest peacefully is their constitutional right, and they do not forfeit it by wearing a white coat. Whatever is being said to them in the corridors of these colleges should stop, and you are the one who can stop it," he added.The Srinagar MP said that despite the health minister’s assurances, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has still not issued an order announcing an enhanced stipend and assurance that no action would be taken against the protesters.
"These young doctors have been given assurances before and watched them dissolve. That, and nothing else, is why they are still sitting outside. I would be grateful for a reply on the question I have asked," he said.
In a separate letter to the principals, the MP criticised them for allegedly warning the interns of consequences if they do not return to duty."I do not assume this began with you, and I am aware of the position you occupy, but these are your own students. They came to you at eighteen, you have taught them for nine years, and they are now asking to be paid what interns are paid everywhere else in this country, a demand the health minister has called genuine, the chief minister has endorsed, and a committee of this government recommended in 2023," he said.
Mehdi said that peaceful protest is their constitutional right and it is not diminished because “they are trainees in your charge”."This dispute will end with the stipend revised, because everyone with the authority to decide has already said it should be. What will remain is what was said in these weeks, and by whom. Your students will remember whether their college stood with them," he said. He urged the principals to support the students’ demands and ensure that the government decides in their favour.