Hijab row: Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai urged everyone to maintain peace. (File)
The Karnataka High Court is hearing a petition that has challenged hijab restrictions in colleges, which has fuelled protests in several colleges across the state.
Here are the top 10 points in this big story:
- A three-judge bench headed by the Karnataka Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi will decide whether schools and colleges can order students not to wear the hijab in classrooms.
- The High Court on Wednesday referred the case to a larger bench citing "the enormity of questions of importance which were debated".
- "These matters give rise to certain constitutional questions of seminal importance in view of certain aspects of personal law," the judge hearing the case said yesterday.
- A group of Muslim girls studying in government colleges in Udupi had filed a petition challenging a ban on wearing the hijab in classrooms.
- The students alleged that they were stopped from entering class wearing headscarves though it was allowed earlier.
- On Tuesday, the protests intensified as groups of students wearing the hijab and saffron scarves clashed outside a college, forcing the police to use tear gas and batons.
- On Wednesday, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai appealed for calm and announced all colleges and schools in the state would be closed for three days.
- The protests started last month at the Government Girls PU college in Udupi when six students alleged they had been barred from classes for insisting on keeping on the hijab.
- The protests spread to more colleges in Udupi and other cities like Mandya and Shivamogga, with college staff banning the hijab - though rules allow it - and many students taking a confrontational position by showing up in saffron scarves and shouting slogans.
- Yesterday, the government ordered a three-day ban on protests near schools and colleges.
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