ISLAMABAD, Feb 08 ( Alliance News): New Delhi government step to ban hijab for Muslim female students in school classrooms, has been criticized across the country and there have been widespread protests against the ban.
According to a foreign media, the incidents in the Indian state of Karnataka have created fear among the minority community, which they say has led to an increase in atrocities under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
Earlier last month, female students at a government high school were instructed not to wear the hijab, but the practice soon spread to two more schools in the state.
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Samia Roshan, president of the Girls Islamic Organization of Karnataka, told a press conference that “this is inherently discriminatory and also against the rights given to female students by the Constitution of India.”
“The ban is a violation of personal liberty which is the right of female students and it does not harm anyone else,” she said.
Footage circulating on social media shows hundreds of people taking to the streets in at least two towns in Karnataka carrying Indian flags in their hands.
This is the latest in a series of days of protests against the ban on the hijab in India.
According to Indian media, one of the schools partially lifted the ban and allowed Muslim students to sit in class with hijab but instructed them to sit in separate classrooms.
The other two schools banning the hijab have declared holidays and closed on Monday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party of Narendra Modi’s right wing in Karnataka, and other prominent figures supported the ban on the hijab, which was criticized by other political leaders.
Rahul Gandhi, the leader of India’s opposition Congress party, wrote on social networking site Twitter last week that “by bringing hijab on the path of female students’ education, we are snatching the future of Indian daughters”.
A petition filed against the ban on hijab will be heard in the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday.
Just two days ago, 27 female students were barred from enrolling in a government college in Kandapur, a coastal area of Adupi district in Karnataka.
Her video was also circulating on social media.
Earlier, on December 28, 2021, six female students of Government Women’s PU College, Karnataka were banned from wearing hijab.
The students who were not allowed to enter the college later protested for several days and five of them filed a petition in the High Court seeking permission to go to class with hijab.