BENGALURU – Amid the growing protests against the hijab ban, a court in the southern Indian state of Karnataka told students on Thursday not to wear any religious clothing until it delivers a verdict on petitions seeking to overturn a ban on hijabs.
The court in Karnataka state is considering petitions filed by students challenging the ban on hijabs that some schools have implemented in recent weeks.
“We will pass an order. But till the matter is resolved, no student should insist on wearing religious dress,” the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Karnataka High Court Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi as saying.
The advocates appearing for the petitioners objected to the interim order, saying it amounts to “suspension of our rights”, according to The Wire. But the court said it was a matter of a few days and adjourned for the day.
The court also directed the state to reopen schools and colleges which the chief minister had shut for three days as protests over the ban escalated earlier this week.
The issue grabbed headlines last month when a government-run school in Karnataka’s Udupi district barred students wearing hijabs from entering classrooms, triggering protests outside the school gate. More schools in the state followed with similar bans, forcing the state’s top court to intervene.
However, the issue shot to the spotlight and garnered reactions from celebrities and politicians in India and Pakistan after a video of a hijab-clad student being heckled and jeered at by a mob of Hindutva supporters in Karnataka surfaced on social media.
The uneasy standoff has raised fears among Muslim students who say they are being deprived of their religious rights in the Hindu-majority nation. On Monday, hundreds of students and parents took to the streets to protest the restriction.
The dispute in Karnataka has set off protests elsewhere in India. A number of demonstrators were detained in the capital, New Delhi, on Thursday, and students and activists have also marched in cities including Hyderabad and Kolkata in recent days.
