India's Top Diplomat in Islamabad Slams Pakistani Officials Amid Karnataka Hijab Row

10:06 GMT, 10 February 2022
© REUTERS / ANUSHREE FADNAVIS
Dhairya Maheshwari
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On 5 February, India's Karnataka state issued a law making uniforms mandatory at pre-university colleges. The authorities argue that banning hijabs in classrooms does not violate the right to practice religion, however, many Muslim girls are refusing to comply.
Sputnik
India's top diplomat at the High Commission in Islamabad has rejected allegations of “religious intolerance” levelled by the Pakistani government.
He denied the accusations after being summoned to Pakistan's Foreign Office on Wednesday over the ongoing row over the banning of hijabs at pre-university educational institutions in Karnataka.

India’s Deputy High Commissioner Suresh Kumar, who is acting as the Charge d’Affaires (CdA) at the mission, urged Islamabad to look at its own track record on human rights before pointing the finger at New Delhi.

India often blasts Pakistan for not giving adequate protection to its Hindus, Sikhs, and other minorities who are targeted by radical Islamists in the country.
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Kumar also conveyed to the Pakistani authorities that “India is a secular country."
A press release by Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday stated that the Indian CdA was told about Islamabad’s “grave concern and condemnation on the deeply reprehensible act of banning Muslim girl students from wearing hijab (headscarf)” in Karnataka.
The release squarely blamed the “majoritarian agenda” of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological parent Rashtriya Swayawsevak Sangh (RSS) for the hijab row.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP is in power in the southern state of Karnataka as well.
The controversy has also polarised Indian politics, with the federal opposition Congress Party coming out in support of Muslim girl students’ right to choose what they wear.
The diplomatic spat between New Delhi and Islamabad broke out hours after Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi called the hijab controversy “part of Indian state plan of ghettoisation of Muslims."

“Depriving Muslim girls of an education is a grave violation of fundamental human rights. To deny anyone this fundamental right and terrorise them for wearing a hijab is absolutely oppressive,” Qureshi said in a Twitter post on 9 February.

On 8 February, Pakistani Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousufzai also expressed her solidarity with the Muslim girl students, terming the controversy as “horrifying."
Nobel Laureate Malala Faces Backlash After Intervening in Karnataka Hijab Row
9 February 2022, 08:47 GMT
Although Indian opposition politicians have expressed solidarity with the Muslim students, they have urged Yousufzai and the Pakistani leadership to mind their own business.

"Pakistan should not lecture India on girl education. Malala was shot there. They failed to provide security to their girls and are now lecturing India," Asaduddin Owaisi, India’s prominent Muslim parliamentarian from the opposition All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) party, remarked at an election meeting on Wednesday.

hijabKarnatakaShah Mahmood QureshiBharatiya Janata party (BJP)Pakistan
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