Srinagar: Hundreds of police and paramilitary forces in riot gear were deployed outside the civil secretariat in Jammu on Tuesday (January 6) to foil protests by a Bharatiya Janata Party-backed (BJP-backed) outfit which is leading the agitation over “biased” reservation system at a medical college in J&K.The protest call was given by the youth wing of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi (SMVD) Sangharsh Samiti, a newly floated outfit supported by a number of Hindu rightwing outfits which is spearheading the agitation against the admission of Muslims and other non-Hindu students to the SMVD Institute of Medical Excellence in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir.Some protesters who assembled near the secretariat on Tuesday morning and organised a demonstration despite heavy presence of security forces demanded that the government should cancel the admission of non-Hindu students or shut down the college.“The presence of non-Hindus on the campus and their style of eating and worship is bound to hurt the sentiments of Hindus which could trigger law and order problems. The government should cancel their admission or shut down the college,” a protester in the sit-in demonstration told reporters.The agitation is feared to gain momentum in coming days and it could emerge as a headache for chief minister Omar Abdullah-led government ahead of the winter session of the J&K assembly which is set to convene in the capital Jammu from February 2.In a statement, colonel Sukhvir Singh Mankotia, convener of the SMVD Sangharsh Samiti said that a series of protests have been planned in Jammu against the backdrop of the controversy “to inform and sensitise” the public about the “discrimination faced by Sanatanis”.The Samiti is planning to carry out a ‘Sanatan Jagran Yatra’ through the city while a hunger strike and a signature campaign has been launched to garner support.The Samiti’s women’s wing is planning to organise a demonstration in Jammu on January 8 followed by another demonstration on 10 January in which veterans from the armed forces and police on January 10 will participate, the outfit has said, while warning the government to “take a decision in the public interest” or prepare for complete shutdown across Jammu division.The chief minister has earlier asserted that the college is governed by the SMVD university that has been established by an act of the J&K assembly which doesn’t restrict student admissions on the basis of religion.“The donations of Hindus must be used for the welfare of Hindus. Omar Abdullah is the CM of not just Kashmir but Jammu also. He has a clear majority in the assembly. It is time to change the act,” said another Samiti activist.The BJP and its affiliates have claimed that the university was only funded by the donations of hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims who visit the SMVD shrine located in the Trikuta Hills of Katra in Reasi district of Jammu every year.The Wire has previously reported that the university also received a significant ‘grants-in-aid’ of Rs 121.30 crore from the J&K government since 2017-18 till this year.The controversy, which is increasingly taking a communal colour, broke out when the college opened for admissions last year and only eight students from the Hindu community figured in the first batch of students.The selection list, in which the majority of the remaining 42 students are Muslims from Kashmir valley, prompted protests by the Hindu rightwing groups in Jammu with the BJP throwing its weight behind the protesters.All 50 students have been placed at the college on the basis of their NEET rankings.Coming out in support of the protesters, the Leader of the Opposition and senior BJP leader Sunil Sharma said last month that only those students should get admission at the college “who have faith in Mata Vaishno Devi”.In November, activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Rashtriya Bajrang Dal and other Hindu rightwing affiliates stormed into the campus of the college where they raised slogans demanding expulsion of 42 non-Hindu students.In a meeting in Jammu on Monday, BJP leader Sharma promised the core group of the Samiti to “personally place the suggestions and directions provided by the Sangharsh Samiti before the (party) high command to ensure a high-level, just and speedy resolution”.Sharma told the group that the party was “extremely serious” and playing “active role” in the issue, a statement issued by the Samiti said.