Hijab row erupts in Mangaluru again

 

Mangaluru, 05 Nov 2014: The row over wearing ’Hijab’ (headscarf) has surfaced again in an educational institution in Dakshina Kannada district. A college management in outskirts of the city at Valachil asked girls not to attend the classes wearing hijab on Wednesday. It was later solved amicably.

 

Sources said the pharmacy college principal called the girls and told them the wearing of scarf is against the uniform code of the college, to this the girls called their parents. After some heated exchanges, parents of the girls said the point was not explicitly mentioned in the prospectus and they could not impose uniform code on them all of a sudden.

 

Sources said the management agreed the point was not specifically mentioned and they would make the correction in the prospectus next year, allowing the girls to wear hijab for this academic year.

 

The classes had started on October 27 and the girls had attended classes wearing hijabs. The management had warned them not to and the girls had sought a week’s time. But even after the deadline, the girls continued the wear hijab, which led to Wednesday’s incident.

 

Recent incidents of Muslim girls refusing to go to colleges without wearing burqa or hijab have made institutions to think of introducing uniform in their campus. Meanwhile, some institutions consider uniform as a part of their discipline.

 

It can be recalled that student Aysha Ashmin of SVS College, Bantwal was not allowed to wear hijab to college in 2009 and later HadiyaIqbal, second year PU commerce student of Jain PU College in Moodbidri, too had undergone the same fate in her institution in 2011.