Two among six girls protesting the hijab ban in Karnataka’s Udupi district have missed their second PU board exams after being denied entry for wearing Hijab to exam halls.

Two girls, Aliya Assadi and Resham, both commerce students, did not appear for exams despite collecting hall tickets just hours before the exam commenced.

These are among the six girls who initially began a protest opposing a ban on Hijab in the government PU College, Udupi in January this year.

Three of the six girls are commerce students. One of these students did not collect the hall ticket while two others did but did not enter the exam hall.

These girls reached the Vidyodaya PU College in Udupi, which was their designated exam centre. Sources said that although most students entered exam halls after removing Hijabs in a designated area, these two students refused. They waited at the administrative office upto 10.45 am, only to be denied permission and returned without appearing for the exam.

It may be recollected that the Hijab row was heard by a full bench of the Karnataka High Court which had ruled that Hijab was not an essential Islamic practice and hence asked students to follow dress code prescribed by their College Development Management Committees.

Minister for primary and secondary education, BC Nagesh, had also reinstated in a media briefing that no student wearing religious attires, both in colleges where college development management committees have prescribed uniforms or not will be allowed to enter exam halls. Similar rules applied for private candidates as well.  

The second PU Board exams are being held between April 22 and May 18 across the state and this year, over 6.84 lakh students have registered to appear for the boards. Of these, 60.05 lakh are regular candidates who have enrolled into colleges while 21,928 will appear as private candidates.

On day one of the exam, 68 students out of 620 who had enrolled for Logic paper and 11,311 out of 2,38,763 who were to take the Business Studies exam have skipped the exam.

Also read: Karnataka Minister: SSLC attendance unaffected by Hijab controversy