Students in Chennai hold peaceful protest

The high court on Tuesday dismissed various petitions challenging a ban on hijab in education institutions and said that wearing hijab is not an essential religious practice of Islam.

Students of a college in Chennai protested against the Karnataka High Court’s verdict over the hijab row on Tuesday.

Students stage a sit-in protest against the Karnataka High Court verdict to upheld the hijab ban in schools and colleges, saying that wearing the hijab is not essential to Islam, in Chennai on Tuesday. (ANI)

Visuals shared by news agency ANI showed dozens of students from the city’s The New College sitting peacefully in protest, holding up placards and signs to drive their point home. One placard read ‘fight against cultural genocide’ and ‘we support hijab’.

The high court on Tuesday dismissed various petitions challenging a ban on hijab in education institutions and said that wearing hijab is not an essential religious practice of Islam. A bench of Karnataka High Court comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice Krishna S Dixit, and Justice JM Khazi said that no case is made out for invalidating the Government order of Feb 5.

The three-member bench also said that students could not object to the ‘prescription of a school uniform - which is a reasonable restriction’.

The controversy began when at least eight Muslim students protested outside the Government Girls Pre-University College in Udupi, about 400 kms from Bengaluru, in January against the orders of the College Development Council (CDC) banning the hijab in classes. Decision of CDC was resisted by at least eight students, who protested outside the college building for being forced to choose between their rights to education and freedom to practice their religion.

After this, boys of several colleges in Udupi started attending classes wearing saffron scarves.

This protest spread to other parts of the state as well leading to protests and agitations in several places in Karnataka.