Seeking to settle a simmering controversy over the dress code of Muslim girls in high schools and colleges, an issue that had become a hot discussion topic across India and had made global news,  the Karnataka High Court ruled that a hijab is not an essential religious practice in the Islamic faith and regretted that the issue had been blown out of proportion in an implicit attempt to engineer social disharmony. 

The hijab is not an essential religious practice, the Karnataka High Court said in state capital Bengaluru as it backed a ban on hijabs in classrooms, weeks after violent protests in many parts of the southern state against the restriction which many saw as an infringement on their constitutional right to practise their faith.
   
"We are of the considered opinion that wearing of hijab by Muslim women does not form a part of essential religious practice in Islamic faith," the three-judge bench unanimously ruled, refusing to strike down the state government's order that banned its wearing in schools and colleges on the ground of discipline. 
 
The eagerly awaited judgement Tuesday is seen as a setback to students who had challenged a ban on wearing the hijab in class citing religious obligation. Five petitions had challenged the ban in court, NDTV said. 
Ahead of the order, the state government banned large gatherings for a week in Bengaluru "to maintain public peace and order". Schools and colleges were closed in Udupi, the city about 400 km from the state capital, where the controversy first erupted and became a hot debating topic in media and society in a polarized nation that has also one of the largest Muslim populations. 

The Karnataka High Court had temporarily banned religious clothes, including hijab and saffron scarves associated with Hindus, last month as the controversy snowballed into protests and a face-off between different sections of students.

On the day the Karnataka High Court ruled that the hijab is not an essential religious practice, backing a state government ban on religious clothing in schools and colleges, eight burqa-clad students in a Karnataka district were not allowed to appear for exams, NDTV said. 

Eight students who had come to Kembhavi village PU college in Yadgir district of Karnataka wearing hijabs to take their second PU preparatory examinations were turned away, the media reported. Before the High Court's interim ban, this college allowed the students to wear the hijab inside classrooms.

Hijab is an essential part of our religion, maintained the student petitioners, and have vowed to continue their fight in the Supreme Court of India.

Calling for the maintenance of peace and order in society,  Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai asked students to focus on their education by accepting the court verdict.

(SAM)