India court: No religious clothes until hijab row settled
Associated PressNEW DELHI — A court in a southern Indian state told students on Thursday not to wear any religious clothing until it delivers a verdict on petitions seeking to overturn a ban on hijabs, headscarves used by Muslim women. But till the matter is resolved, no student should insist on wearing religious dress,” the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi as saying. The issue grabbed headlines last month when a government-run school in Karnataka’s Udupi district barred students wearing hijabs from entering classrooms, triggering protests outside the school gate. “Depriving Muslim girls of an education is a grave violation of fundamental human rights,” its foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, tweeted on Wednesday, calling the situation “absolutely oppressive.” Nobel Peace Prize laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai also condemned the ban.