Aggrieved parents talked to the principal about the issue but he remained adamant. A girl was even forced to remove her dupatta
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — About ten Muslim girls wearing hijab were not allowed to write the Class X board examination in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur district on Monday.
The girls were barred from appearing in the examination at Sarvodaya Inter-College and returned home with their families dejected.
Talking to TV9, a student said when they entered the campus to check their roll numbers, they thought no Muslim student had come for the exam as all girls were without covering their heads or wearing hijab.
“As we went inside, a woman rudely told us to remove the hijab. We told her that we would not remove our hijab. Then, the woman told us that we would not be allowed to write the exam if we didn’t remove our hijab. We came out and told our parents”, said the girl.
The aggrieved parents talked to the principal about the issue but he remained adamant. A girl was even forced to remove her dupatta.
The girl said that they were ready to open their and to be checked by the invigilator thoroughly. But the officials insisted on the removal of the hijab completely.
When asked about allegations by school authorities that the girls objected to checking their identity, the girl said: “They are telling a lie. We were not attending the exam by committing fraud. Why should we object to the procedure to check our identity?” she said.
The school authorities claimed that the institution was strictly following the rules set for the examination.
“Rules of board exams are being followed strictly. Four students refused to follow them and went home with their families without taking the exam,” the centre administrator and college principal Dinesh Chandra Gupta said.
“A total of 413 students appeared in the examination at the centre. Of them, 153 were Muslim girls. All the other Muslim girls took the exam, following the rules, except these four girls,” he said.
College manager Anil Kumar Upadhyay claimed “The four girls refused to remove the hijab for mandatory checking to match the candidates’ face with the pictures on their admit cards. They refused. Two female teachers – Rekha Yadav and Firdaus Fatima – were deployed as invigilators at the entrance to check the girl students.”
Deputy inspector of schools (DIoS), Jaunpur, Rakesh Kumar said: “So far no written complaint regarding any such matter has been received at my office.”
