No Burqa in campus, Hindutva groups protest against Muslim girls, lecturer

Mangaluru: In a bizzare protest to exert pressure on the Principal to impose ban on Muslim girl’s Hijab – traditional veil inside college, about 50 boys have started coming to college with saffron shawl. Interestingly, the Dr K Shivaram Karanth Government First Grade College and Post Graduation Centre has about 492 students of which only 15 are Muslim girls and 4 Muslim boys. When the Principal called and questioned the protest, the anti-hijab agitators of the college, who apparently vow loyalty to hard-line Hindutva groups said that this was a “protest” against a college lecturer and some Muslim girls wearing hijab. They are also motivating all Hindu male students to wear saffron shawls but most of the them is not willing to join the saffron agitation. “Their demand was to stop the Muslim girls wearing scarf,” sources in the college said. The college principal Chandrashekar Kantamangala in its report to Deccan Chronicle said,“Some girls are wearing the black shawl of the uniform on their head and few of them wear it like hijab. However they are wearing only the black uniform shawl (part of the uniform).”