2-Week Ban On Gatherings, Protests Near Educational Institutions In Bengaluru

All gatherings and protests near educational institutions have been banned in Bengaluru for two weeks amid the escalating row over hijabs in schools and colleges of Karnataka. Amid protests in the state, right-wing groups have started targeting Muslim girls over their right to wear a hijab in classrooms. 

Incidents of stone-pelting and use of force by police were reported on Tuesday as protests by students spread to more colleges, prompting Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to declare a three-day holiday for all educational institutions in order "to maintain peace and harmony".

As the Karnataka High Court -- which is hearing petitions filed by five women from a government college in Udupi over the hijab case -- also appealed for peace, state school education minister BC Nagesh claimed that the Campus Front of India (CFI) -- the student wing of the Islamic outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) -- is said to have incited the Hijab row.

The controversy also crossed state borders and surfaced in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and Puducherry on Tuesday. The Madhya Pradesh government on Wednesday said that no proposal to ban hijabs in educational institutions is under its consideration even as state school education minister Inder Singh Parmar yesterday said that he backed the hijab ban and that he supported a dress code in schools._NDTV