Some schools in Karnataka reopen amid hijab turmoil
POLICE STAND GUARD AS CLASSES FOR PRIMARY, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS BEGIN
Karnataka yesterday reopened some schools that had been closed following protests last week against the move to bar Muslim students from wearing hijab in class.
Police stood guard as students in pink uniforms, about a dozen wearing hijab, entered a government girl’s school where the issue first flared in the district of Udupi, about 400km from the tech hub of Bengaluru that is the state capital.
Authorities have banned gatherings of more than five people within 200 metres of educational institutions — primary to high school — that have resumed classes, although higher grades and colleges are yet to open.
The move came after the state high court, which had set a hearing of the matter, told students not to wear any attire of religious import, ranging from saffron shawls to scarves or hijabs, in classrooms until further orders.
Interim directives
“Whether wearing of hijab in the classroom is a part of essential religious practice of Islam in the light of constitutional guarantees needs a deeper examination,” the court said in an interim order last week.
The issue was spotlighted following protests last week after some schools refused entry to students wearing hijab, with the veil deemed to have fallen foul of a February 5 order on uniforms by the state.
Ayesha Imthiaz, a student in Udupi, said it was humiliating to be asked to take off the hijab before class. She said her “religion had been questioned and insulted by a place which I had considered as a temple of education,” she told Reuters on the weekend.
An official in the coastal district of Udupi, Pradeep Kurudekar
Authorities have banned gatherings of more than five people within 200 metres of educational institutions that have resumed classes, although higher grades and colleges are yet to open.
S, told reporters that authorities would wait for further orders from the court or the government to resume all classes.