Hijab row: Karnataka HC hearing today; protests intensify; key updates

Amid hijab row across Karnataka that prompted the state government to declare a three-day holiday for all educational institutions, the High Court will resume hearing petitions filed by students on Wednesday.

Earlier, the court had appealed to the students to maintain peace and tranquillity. It had observed that only "some mischievous people" were keeping the Hijab issue burning.

Students staged demonstrations outside Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College on Tuesday as a mark of protest against Muslim students wearing hijab. The students say want equality and will wear this till Hijab is banned.

Here are the key updates:

• Gatherings, agitations or protests of any type are prohibited within the area of 200-meter radius from the gate(s) of schools, PU colleges, degree colleges or other similar educational institutions in Bengaluru city for two weeks.
   
• Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday, February 9, lent her support to Muslim girls participating in the Karnataka hijab protest. "Whether it is a bikini, a ghoonghat, a pair of jeans or a hijab, it is a woman's right to decide what she wants to wear," she tweeted.

• Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai expressed concern and urged Indian leaders to stop marginalisation of Muslim women. The girls' education activist tweeted that "Refusing to let girls go to school in their hijabs is horrifying. Objectification of women persists - for wearing less or more. Indian leaders must stop the marginalisation of Muslim women."
   
• Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra said that those arrested amidst the agitation were outsiders and not students. "Action will be taken wherever unpleasant things have happened. Police have registered cases. We have arrested a few people, they are outsiders, not students, after inquiry, we will let you know," Jnanendra told ANI.
   
• Karnataka revenue minister R Ashoka said that the govt's not in favour of either hijab or kesari. Students can wear whatever they want on streets, but dress code is compulsory in schools. We closed schools and colleges as a precautionary measure for students' safety.
   
• CPM MP Elamaram Kareem has written to education minister Dharmendra Padhan for urgent intervention. He wrote that "Students wearing hijab along with uniform for so many yrs. In some educational institutes colour of headscarf prescribed deliberately manufactured to cause division & arouse communal sentiments"
   
• As the controversy around headscarves escalated, a video of burqa-clad Muslim student who was heckled inside her college was shared widely. The girl identified as Muskan told India today that she shouted 'Allah hu Akbar' in response to 'Jai Shri Ram' chants by those heckling her. The video showed a mob of saffron shawl-wearing men heckling her for coming to college wearing a burqa.
   
• Tension prevailed at some educational institutions in Udupi, Shivamogga and Bagalkote, forcing the police and authorities to intervene.
   
• The Karnataka hijab row started on January 1 after the management of a government pre-university college in the coastal town of Udupi in Karnataka barred six Muslim girls from attending classes for wearing hijab as the dress was against prescribed norms of the college.