Six students on Tuesday, 1 February, were denied permission to enter a classroom after they refused to remove their hijab at the government Pre-University College in Udupi, Karnataka, Times of India reported.
The Muslim girls have been resisting the school policy, which disallows hijabs in classrooms, and not attending classes to mark their protest.
On Tuesday, despite staff instructions to vacate the campus, the Muslim girls sat in the campus at least till noon. Media entry was reportedly banned in the campus.
The incident also occurred on World Hijab Day.
"We will fight for this cause legally. At the meeting held yesterday, we did not agree to attend classes without the hijab. We have tried all possible ways to convince the authorities," one of the students told Times of India.
The students have asserted that wearing a hijab is a fundamental right guaranteed in the Constitution and nobody can take away that right, Deccan Herald reported.
The PUC at the coastal Karnataka town was closed last week because of a COVID outbreak. On 31 December 2021 too, the girls had attempted to attend classes wearing their hijabs, but had been told that they could not enter their classrooms with them, and directed to take online classes.
"We are practising Muslims, and the hijab is a part of our faith. Along with that, we are also students with aspirations for a career and a good life. Why are we suddenly expected to choose between our identity and our education? That isn’t fair at all,” one of the students, Aliya Assadi, had told The Quint.
Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Thursday, 27 January, issued a notice to the Karnataka government over the controversy.
(With inputs from Deccan Herald and Times of India.)
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