Three Muslim girls have been prevented from attending their practical examinations, which began on Monday, at the Udupi Pre-university College (PUC) in Karnataka, where the Hijab issue originated (February 28). The situation occurred when they requested permission to pass examinations while wearing their hijab, in direct defiance of the Karnataka High Court’s interim decision.

According to sources, the three students also requested that the exams be postponed by PUC principal Rudre Gowda. They claimed Gowda had threatened to file a police report against them. “We begged the principal today (February 28) once again to enable us to write the exam,” Almas AH, one of the students and a petitioner in the hijab matter, said.

“We didn’t have courses for two months, but we watched YouTube videos and prepared for the exam, and we hoped we’d get to write the exams,” she continued. The principal refused, stating that if we stayed another five minutes, he would file a police report.”

“Right now, we should have been in our labs, doing practicals, rather than being forced to leave.” “The hatred sown against hijab is shattering the goals and dreams I had from college,” she stated in a tweet on February 28.

Almas AH and two fellow female Muslim students requested to take their practical exams wearing a hijab, but the college management refused to accommodate their request. Principal Rudre Gowda explained to The Telegraph India that the kids refused to listen to him when he requested them to follow the court’s decision.

“I talked to them for a few minutes, trying to persuade them to take the examinations by removing their hijab,” I asked them to follow the rules and take the exam even if it was after 9.30 a.m. “However, they simply refused to listen to me,” he explained.

Students in Karnataka who identify as ‘Hijabi’ disobey the High Court’s order.

The six students behind the ‘Hijab row’ had written to the PUC board earlier on February 24, requesting a deferral of their practical tests. Female Muslim students in other colleges in the State similarly insisted on writing their exams with hijabs, inspired by Almas AH’s decision to prioritize ‘Hijab’ over ‘Kitaab.’

Government Pre-University College and Bhandarkar’s College of Arts and Sciences in Kundapura, as well as Dr. G Shankar Government Women’s First Grade College in Udupi, are among the colleges. By the interim ruling of the Karnataka High Court, they were also prevented from writing exams.

“We were sent back from the gates itself by police officials when we came to the college gates to request entrance to the library or to request permission to take the exam,” a ‘hijabi’ Muslim girl told the News Minute.

The Karnataka High Court upholds the ban on hijab at colleges with mandatory uniforms.

Rituraj Awasthi, the chief justice of the Karnataka High Court, restated the interim ruling issued by the court on February 10, 2022, prohibiting students from wearing religious attire in classrooms, noting that it will apply to both degree and pre-university institutes with a uniform code. The court went on to say that the ruling solely affects pupils, not teachers.

The order was passed just weeks after the Karnataka High Court issued an interim order prohibiting religious clothing from being worn in educational institutions. On February 10, the Karnataka High Court issued an order instructing students to desist from wearing anything religious-related until the case is resolved.

The Hijab Debate in Karnataka

Some Muslim students at PU College in Karnataka filed a plea in the High Court last month to be allowed to attend lessons while wearing the hijab. They were denied admission to classes because the hijab is not part of the college uniform and so cannot be worn in class, according to the college administration. The students have been demonstrating while wearing burqas since then.

After meeting with the Campus Front of India (CFI), the student wing of the Islamist organization Popular Front of India (PFI) in October 2021, Muslim students began wearing hijab and burqa to school and college in defiance of uniform requirements in December 2021. The students admitted that they had spoken with the CFI.