23 girl students suspended in Karnataka for staging demo seeking permission to wear Hijab inside classrooms

The Uppinangady Government First Grade College management has suspended 23 girl students, who staged a protest demanding permission to wear Hijab inside classrooms last week. The Puttur BJP MLA and the College Development Committee (CDC) chairman Sanjeeva Matandoor told PTI on Tuesday, “The students staged a demonstration. So they were suspended on Monday.” According to sources, last week the girls came to the college in Puttur Taluk of Dakshina Kannada district wearing Hijab and protested demanding permission to wear the headscarf. The CDC met on Monday and decided to suspend them. The panel had suspended seven girl students for coming to the college with Hijab.

The girls have been insisting upon wearing Hijab despite the Karnataka High Court ruling in March this year on the issue that head scarf is not an essential religious practice in Islam and everyone should abide by the uniform dress rule in the educational institutions wherever there is a dress code. The court also upheld the Karnataka government’s order which banned any cloth inside the education institutions that can disturb peace and public order. The ruling came after a few girl students from a government pre-university college in the coastal district of Udupi approached the High Court after they were banned from attending classes with Hijab as some Hindu students in protest started coming to the college wearing saffron stoles. The issue had sparked agitations by a section of students with saffron stoles versus Hijab row making headlines in parts of Karnataka earlier this year.

To control the situation, the Government had shut schools and colleges in Karnataka for a week in February.