Several students across Karnataka on Tuesday, February 15 chose to return home without attending school after they were denied permission to wear hijab inside the school premises by the authorities. Currently wearing hijab or any other similar religious attire, such as saffron shawl, is prohibited for students by an interim order of the Karnataka High Court.
Some class 10 students chose to skip their preparatory exams.
Schools were reopened on Monday, after the state government shut down schools and colleges across the state on 8 February when incidents of minor violence were reported across the state over the controversy.
The high court will continue to hear the matter on Wednesday. Colleges will reopen on Wednesday, 16 February.
At a school in Shivamogga city, a burqa-clad girl refused to write her exam when the school authorities asked her to remove her hijab. "We have grown up wearing hijab since our childhood and we cannot give it up. I will not write the exam, I will go home," the girl told reporters.
In another such instance in Karnataka Public School in Nelliahudikeri, Kodagu district, 23 students who reached the school to attend class decided to go back after the authorities did not permit them to wear the hijab inside the school. One of the students told reporters, “We have been wearing the hijab to school for years. But now the High Court has ordered us not to wear hijab so we decided not to attend classes as this goes against Islam.”
In some places, minor protests were held by parents, but they were dispersed by the police to comply with the interim high court order.
In another institution in Chikkamagaluru town, tension prevailed over denial of entry to students wearing hijabs. Parents swarmed the school and questioned the school authorities over refusal of entry to students.
Police officers deployed outside the school told the crowd that there was a high court order not to let anyone wear hijab or saffron shawls but the parents were not ready to listen and insisted that their wards be allowed to write the exam.
A similar incident was reported at a school in Indavara village in Chikkamagaluru district.
(With PTI inputs.)
(Published in an arrangement with The News Minute.)
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