More than 20 students of Dhanbad College of Nursing at the town’s Asharfi Hospital on Thursday staged a protest and lodged a complaint against the management of the institute for allegedly deceiving them and operating the four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSc Nursing) course without the mandatory affiliation of the Indian Nursing Council.

The students accompanied by their parents and guardians also met Dhanbad city superintendent of police R. Ramkumar and requested him to register a case against the hospital administration and take suitable action.

Sudhanshu Ranjan Roy, the father of one of the protesting students, said: “A majority of the 42 students of the first batch, who will be studying from 2019-’23, are from nearby areas of Bengal such as Purulia, Asansol and Burdwan. During admissions, we were assured that the college is affiliated with the Indian Nursing Council. However, the college authorities could not submit the requisite documents.”

“The fraud came to light in March when some of the senior students raised the issue of affiliation. This prompted us to seek the documents pertaining to affiliation with the council. The college authorities tried to avoid answering the question,” said a student from Purulia, adding that when the students demanded that the college authorities return their original certificates and marksheets, the college authorities said the students must first pay up the full course fee of Rs 5.5 lakh.

“We also met the Bengal minister for labour and law, Moloy Ghatak, recently who advised us to take up the issue with the Jharkhand chief minister. We wrote a letter to chief minister Hemant Soren to intervene,” said the parent of another student requesting anonymity, and added that some of the students had already deposited the full course fee of Rs 5.5 lakh to the college.

Harendra Singh, chief executive officer of Aharfi Hospital which runs the BSc Nursing course, said, “The charges of fraud are completely baseless. Rules have changed. An affiliation with INC is not necessary for operating the nursing course as per the latest ruling of the Supreme Court.”