Muslim girls wearing Hijab barred from attending classes in India

Group of Muslim students at a government college in Karnataka state has been forced to sit outside the classroom for weeks now.

The Muslim girls were not allowed to sit in the classroom because they were wearing Hijab, or headscarf.

“When we arrived at the door of the classroom, the teacher said we cannot enter with the Hijab,” Almas told Al Jazeera.

Since then, a group of six Muslim students at a government-run women’s college in Udupi district in India’s Karnataka state in the south are forced to sit outside the classroom because the college administration alleges they are defying the rules since Hijab is not part of the uniform.

But the girls told Al Jazeera the Hijab is “part of their faith” and practicing it is “their right guaranteed under law”.

A photo of the students clad in Hijab and college dress while sitting on the steps outside their classroom has gone viral on social media.

Rudre Gowda, the college principal, told Al Jazeera they cannot allow the students to wear Hijab in classrooms “as it is not part of the uniform”.

The Hijab ban has sparked outrage in India, with student and rights groups accusing the college administration of bias against the Muslim minority.

We demand that those in the administration who are stopping Muslim girls from wearing Hijab be suspended and that these girls should be allowed to enter their classrooms with their Hijabs, their self-respect and dignity,” activist Afreen Fatima, secretary of Fraternity Movement in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera.

The Campus Front of India (CFI), an organisation of Muslim students active in southern Indian states, has urged the college to rescind its rules over Hijab and allow the students to wear it while attending classes.

K Raghupati Bhat, a local BJP legislator who also heads a committee in the Udupi college, told the parents of the students in a meeting that the college would continue with its uniform code, irrespective of the religious preferences of the students.

Back at the college in Udupi, the girls told Al Jazeera they will continue to assert their rights