‘Banning hijab akin to banning holy Quran’

Students protest after being denied entry into an educational institute while wearing a hijab, in Chikmagalur on Thursday. Pic/PTI

The petitioners in the hijab case have told the Karnataka High Court that Muslim girls are suffering because of the restriction on the headscarf. "I request the court to pass an order allowing girls to wear hijab on Friday, which is Jumma day for the Muslim, and during the holy month of Ramzan," counsel Vinod Kulkarni, appearing on behalf of the Muslim girls, said before the full bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice J M Khazi and Justice Krishna S Dixit.

Kulkarni siad there was a "mass hysteria" over the issue. He said hijab was "not against health or morality". He said banning hijab amounted to banning the holy Quran. On January 1, six girl students of a college in Udupi attended a press conference protesting against the college denying them entry into the classroom by wearing Hijab.

This was four days after they requested the principal permission to wear Hijabs in classes which was not allowed. Till then, students used to wear Hijab to the campus and entered the classroom after removing it, the college had said. "The institution did not have any rule on Hijab-wearing as such and since no one used to wear it to the classroom in the last 35 years. The students who came with the demand had the backing of outside forces," Gowda had said.

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