JAMMU, Jan. 7 -- The National Medical Commission (NMC) on Tuesday de-recognised the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence in Kakryal, Jammu, and withdrew its letter of permission for the 2025-26 academic session. The college has been at the centre of a controversy over the admission of 42 Muslim students to the inaugural MBBS batch of 50. The commission's Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) cited "gross and substantial" deficiencies in infrastructure, clinical material and faculty following a surprise inspection. To safeguard the careers of the admitted students, the NMC authorised the Jammu and Kashmir administration to adjust them in other medical colleges within the Union territory as supernumerary seats. Earlier on Tuesday, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah denounced the protests against the admissions, asserting that the students secured seats purely on merit. He suggested shutting the institution and shifting the students if the atmosphere remained hostile. "Those children worked hard to get their seats. No one did them any favour, neither me nor the university... If you do not want to have them there, then adjust them somewhere else," Abdullah told reporters. "We do not want to send them to a place where so much politics is being done. Close that medical college." The controversy erupted in November after the list of the inaugural batch, selected through the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), revealed that 42 of the 50 students were Muslims, mostly from Kashmir. The batch also included seven Hindus and one Sikh. This triggered protests by the Sangharsh Samiti, a BJP-supported outfit formed shortly after the admission process was completed in November. Abdullah remarked that the prevailing atmosphere had rendered the campus hostile, adding that if he were a parent, he would be "afraid" to send his children to the institute. In its order, the NMC stated that while it had initially granted the letter of permission (LoP) based on documents and inspection, it subsequently received multiple complaints regarding inadequate infrastructure and a shortage of qualified teaching faculty and resident doctors....