Hijab Row: Karnataka High Court to hear students' plea against ban today

The Karnataka High Court will on Tuesday hear the petition against the hijab ban in several junior colleges.

The hijab ban has been questioned in the High Court by a group of students from Udupi's government junior college. The students have said in a plea that the ban violates the right to freedom of religion enshrined in Article 25 of the Constitution.

The controversy began last month when six Muslim girl students of the state-run PU College in Karnataka's Udupi alleged on January 1, 2022, that they were denied entry into the classroom for wearing hijab. Many girls of the Udupi college protested the move by college authorities of preventing them from attending classes in hijabs.

The protest subsequently spread to other colleges in Udupi and other districts as some students continued to wear hijabs and were countered by others wearing saffron shawls.