AURANGABAD: All India Majlise-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) activists put up banners in Maharashtra's Beed city in support of Hijab'hijab' for female Muslim students, and said the Indian Constitution gives the right to citizens to follow their religious culture.
The banners, conveying the message 'pehle hijab fir kitaab' (hijab first, book later), were displayed on Monday in Bashirganj and Karanja areas of Beed and were removed on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the state unit president of the party and Lok Sabha member Imtiaz Jaleel appealed to non-Muslim women to wear 'hijab' as a mark of protest.
Beed city police station's inspector Ravi Sanap told PTI on Wednesday, "The situation in Beed is peaceful. We told them (MIM activists) that they had put up the banners without permission. They understood and removed the banners."
Protests for and against the 'hijab' had intensified in parts of neighbouring Karnataka and turned violent in some places on Tuesday, after the state government last week issued an order making uniforms prescribed by it or management of private institutions mandatory for its students in schools and pre-university colleges.
Luqman Farooqui, a member of the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) students' wing in Beed, said the Indian Constitution gives the right to every person to follow his/her religious culture, and those opposing the 'hijab' should read the Constitution.
"Hence, to convey this message, we had put up banners in support of the 'hijab' in Beed for one day," he said.
Taking to Twitter on Wednesday, Jaleel, who represents Aurangabad Lok Sabha constituency, said, "(I) request my non-Muslim sisters to come together and wear hijab to register their protest. This will be a tight slap on those elements who want to create a divide among friends in schools and colleges. The beauty of India is its unity in diversity."