Udupi students who challenged hijab ban may not write PU exams starting from Friday
UDUPI: Five second PU students who had challenged the state government's ban on wearing the hijab inside classrooms have not taken their hall tickets to appear for the second PU examinations starting from Friday. Sources said that after their request to the education minister to allow them to write the examinations wearing hijab was not entertained, the petitioners -- Almas A H and Hazra Shifa of Science Stream and Aliya Assadi, Aliya Banu and Resham of commerce stream of Women's Government PU College -- have decided not to appear.
Along with these five, another student Bibi Ayesha of the science stream who too had demanded from the college principal to allow her to wear the hijab inside the classroom has also not taken her hall ticket. However, Sadik, a CFI leader, said the girls will make an attempt to write the exams with hijab on. "They will collect hall tickets tomorrow morning and enter the class with hijab. If they are allowed, they will write. If not, they will come back," he said.
Principal Rudre Gowda said that he is ready to hand over hall tickets to the students even on the day of their last examination. "We had sent the messages individually to collect the hall tickets. But a total of 18 students including these six Muslim students have not taken the hall tickets as on Thursday. The science batch students had not appeared for the practical examination also," he said.
There are a total of 75 Muslim girl students in the college and except for six, the rest have followed the dress code norm in the classrooms, he said. He said that the other 12 students who have not collected their hall tickets are from the North Karnataka region.
"In fact it was we who paid their college fees (a nominal amount of Rs 250) as they have been long-time absentees. Those North Karnataka students never attended the physical classes after the transition from online classes," he said. Almas A H and Aliya Assadi had tweeted to the Primary and Secondary Education Minister BC Nagesh and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to give them permission to write the exam wearing hijab.