On January 6, the National Medical Commission (NMC), India’s federal regulator for medical education, revoked the recognition of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute (SMVDMI), located in Reasi district, a mountainous area overlooking the Pir Panjal range that separates the Jammu plains from the Kashmir Valley.

The decision came weeks after protests erupted over the religious composition of the college’s first-ever MBBS batch, launched in November.

Of the 50 students admitted, 42 were Muslims, most of them residents of Kashmir, while seven were Hindus and one was a Sikh.

The college, founded by a Hindu religious charity and partly funded by the government, had launched its first five-year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programme this year.

Admissions to medical colleges across India—both public and private—are conducted through a centralized system based on the National Entrance Examination Test (NEET), administered by the federal National Testing Agency (NTA).

More than two million students appear for the exam annually, competing for approximately 120,000 MBBS seats nationwide.

Students who score high typically enter public colleges, where fees are lower but cutoffs are steep. Those meeting the minimum threshold but falling short of public college cutoffs often enroll in private institutions, including SMVDMI.

One such student was Saniya Jan, an 18-year-old from Kashmir’s Baramulla district, who described her selection as a dream come true.

“It was a dream come true – to be a doctor,” she told Al Jazeera. She chose SMVDMI during counselling because it was 316 kilometers from her home, comparatively closer than other medical colleges.

Her parents drove her to Reasi when classes began in November. “My daughter has been a topper since childhood. I have three daughters, and she is the brightest. She really worked hard to get a medical seat,” her father, Gazanfar Ahmad, said.

However, soon after the academic session began, local Hindu groups launched protests, demanding that Muslim students’ admissions be scrapped.

Protesters argued that since the college was largely funded by offerings from devotees at the Mata Vaishno Devi Temple, a prominent Hindu shrine, Muslim students had “no business being there.”

Demonstrations continued for weeks, with protesters gathering daily outside the college gates and raising slogans.

Legislators from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wrote petitions to Kashmir’s Lieutenant Governor, urging that admissions be reserved exclusively for Hindu students.

The lieutenant governor serves as the federally appointed administrator of the disputed region.

As protests escalated, demands extended to the complete closure of the college.

On January 6, the NMC announced it had withdrawn the college’s authorization, citing failure to meet “minimum standard requirements” for medical education.

According to the commission, the college suffered from deficiencies in teaching faculty, hospital bed occupancy, outpatient flow, library facilities, and operating theatres. A day later, the letter of permission allowing the college to operate was formally withdrawn.

Students, however, strongly disputed these claims. “I don’t think the college lacked resources,” said Jahan, a student who gave only her second name. “Some colleges only have one cadaver per batch. This college had four, and every student got individual dissection time.”

Another student, Rafiq, said relatives studying in government medical colleges in Srinagar lacked similar facilities. “Even they don’t have the kind of facilities that we had here,” he said.

Saniya’s father echoed these views, saying that during admission everything appeared normal. “The college was good. The faculty was supportive. It looked like no one cared about religion inside the campus,” he said.

Political analyst Zafar Choudhary, based in Jammu, questioned the timing of the NMC’s decision. “Logic dictates that infrastructure would have improved since classes began. So how did these deficiencies suddenly appear?” he asked.

He also dismissed the protesters’ demands as baseless, noting that admissions are religion-neutral. “There is a system in place. Students give multiple preferences, and selections are based on merit. How is it their fault?” he said.

Al Jazeera attempted to contact SMVDMI’s executive head, Yashpal Sharma, for comment, but he did not respond.

The college has issued no public statement since losing its authorization.

Students have since packed their belongings and returned home.

Another student, Salim Manzoor, pointed out that Hindu students are enrolled under reserved quotas in a medical college in Muslim-majority Kashmir, questioning why Muslim students were now being targeted elsewhere.

The BJP has denied claims that Muslim students were unwelcome, saying concerns stemmed from “religious sentiments” tied to the shrine.

BJP spokesperson Altaf Thakur said the recognition was withdrawn solely due to regulatory shortcomings and not religious bias.

Last week, Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir, announced that affected students would be accommodated in other medical colleges through supernumerary seats, ensuring their education is not disrupted.

He strongly condemned the protests, stating: “You have played with the future of medical students. If ruining students’ futures brings you happiness, then celebrate it.”

Regional legislator Tanvir Sadiq said the university housing the medical college had received more than $13 million in government funding since 2017, making all Kashmiris stakeholders. “Anyone lawfully domiciled in Kashmir can study there,” he said.

Nasir Khuehami, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Students’ Association, warned that framing education along religious lines could dangerously communalize the sector.

He noted that Muslim-run minority institutions across India do not exclude Hindu students.

Back in Baramulla, Saniya waits anxiously for her future to be decided. “I cleared one of the hardest exams in India and earned my seat on merit,” she said. “Now everything has crashed. This happened because of our identity. They turned our merit into religion.”

Russia on Thursday expelled a British diplomat who it said was an undeclared officer in Britain’s intelligence services, and warned London that Moscow would not tolerate such espionage activities on its territory.

The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, named the British diplomat, a second secretary at the Moscow embassy, and said he was working undercover for Britain’s spy service. Russian media carried pictures of the diplomat.

Russia said he has been given two weeks to leave Russia. Britain’s Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russia’s foreign ministry summoned Britain’s charge d’affaires in Russia, Danae Dholakia, to issue a formal protest about the situation.

“It was again stressed that Moscow would not tolerate the activities of undeclared British intelligence officers in Russia,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“A warning was also issued that if London escalates the situation, the Russian side will give a decisive ‘mirror’ response,” it said.

Protesters at the foreign ministry chanted anti-British slogans in front of the British diplomatic car carrying the charge d’affaires.

Amid the war in Ukraine, Russia and the West have repeatedly accused each other of unfurling espionage campaigns of an intensity not seen since the depths of the Cold War.

Russia says that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, and France’s DGSE have all stepped up attempts to steal secrets, recruit Russians, and sow discord inside Russia.

Western European spy chiefs say that the FSB, Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service and the GRU military intelligence service have mounted major cyber attacks and sabotage campaigns across the Western world, something Moscow denies.

• Trump says “we are going to watch” process in Iran.
• Gulf Arab countries concerned about US strikes.
• Trump aides reviewing a range of options, says source.
  

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that killings in Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests were subsiding and he believed there was no plan for large-scale executions of protesters, as analysts and diplomats warned of possible risks from a US military intervention.

Trump’s comments during an Oval Office event come as fears have escalated in the Middle East that the United States could launch strikes on Iran, following the US president’s repeated threats to intervene on behalf of protesters. He did not rule out possible US military intervention, however.

Some experts and regional diplomats warn that military intervention could backfire by smothering protests, fueling an intensified crackdown on those who participated and triggering retaliatory Iranian missile attacks on US bases in the Middle East.

In a more extreme scenario, several said, US strikes might hasten the government’s collapse, possibly unleashing chaos across the nation of 90 million, encouraging insurgencies by minority Kurdish and Baluch separatists and leaving Iran’s nuclear and missile programs unsecured.

Still, several US intelligence assessments earlier this week concluded that while the protests posed a serious challenge, the government did not appear close to collapsing, according to four knowledgeable sources.

“We have restive ethnic minorities. We have loose undeclared fissile materials. We have dispersed missile stocks with no command and control, and we have had for over a decade refugee flows … and significant atrocities are happening,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, an analyst with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “All the fears that would come with regime change would be expedited.”

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said “there is no plan” by Iran to hang people, when asked about the anti-government protests in the Middle Eastern nation.

“There is no plan for hanging at all,” the foreign minister told Fox News in an interview on the “Special Report with Bret Baier” show. “Hanging is out of the question,” he said.

The protests appear to be the biggest domestic challenge Iran’s clerical establishment has faced since it took power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with massive crowds demanding the government’s ouster and clashing with security forces.

An Iranian official has said more than 2,000 people have died since the protests erupted on December 28. A rights group put the number of deaths at more than 2,600. Many experts believe the toll is much higher.

The White House and the Iranian delegation to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump on Wednesday said “very important sources on the other side” had reported that killings in Iran’s crackdown were subsiding, and that he believed there was currently no plan for large-scale executions.

He did not rule out potential US military action, saying “we are going to watch what the process is” before noting the US administration received a “very good statement” from Iran.

Concern in the Middle East

Gulf Arab governments “are freaking out” over possible US strikes, said a regional diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “In every conversation they are having with the Americans and Iranians, (the Gulf governments) have been asking them to calm down.”

Trump’s earlier warnings of intervention assumed fresh weight on Wednesday as the US began withdrawing some personnel in the region after a senior Iranian official said neighboring countries had been told that American bases would be struck in retaliation.

Not everyone expressed concern over possible US strikes.

Abdullah Mohtadi, the leader of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, a leading Kurdish party that advocates a secular democracy, dismissed the threat of separatism and said only significant US strikes can halt widespread killings of protesters by the security forces.

“The chaos is already there. The most important thing is to stop the massacre of people,” said Mohtadi, who lives in exile in London, adding that he believes opposition groups could work together to replace the theocratic government with democratic rule.

Trump, who ordered strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites in June during a 12-day war between Israel and Iran, has declined to reveal what action he would take.

One source said that Trump aides have been reviewing a range of options, including limited strikes on symbolic military targets.

Some experts said that with his repeated vows to act, Trump may have left himself little choice but to intervene should the security forces pursue their harsh crackdown.

Otherwise, they said, he risks losing credibility.

The key question, said Taleblu, is what targets would be hit.

“The nature of the target can impact the next round of protests or dampen them altogether if the population senses that Washington’s strikes are merely symbolic … and will have no meaningful impact on the security forces,” he said.

Trump could have a greater impact by interrupting Iran’s cash flows and waging cyber-attacks, giving the protests more time to play out, said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

“A military action would make everyone expect an instant result or complain it wasn’t working,” he said.

Trump has been intent on keeping up pressure on Iran after strikes on its nuclear sites in June, a White House official said. His campaign against Tehran, including both actions and the latest rhetoric, is also intended to show US adversaries that he is not shy about using US military might, the official said, citing the attack on Venezuela that toppled the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro in early January.