Minister for Youth Empowerment and Sports K.C. Narayana Gowda, who is also Minister in charge of Shivamogga district, on Saturday, said that no student had been suspended from school or college for staging protests over the hijab issue.
Speaking to the media in Shivamogga, he said that the principal of Karnataka Public School at Shiralakoppa in Shikaripur had said the students could be suspended if they continue to protest on the campus. “Nobody has been suspended. The principal was trying to discipline students”, he said.
More than 50 students of KPS at Shiralakoppa, on Friday, staged a protest in front of the school and raised slogans favouring the hijab. They also wanted the school authorities to allow them to attend classes wearing the hijab. The principal, addressing the students, had said that he had suspended all of them and they could not continue their protests on the campus. A video clip of his statement went viral on Saturday. Based on his statement, a section of media reported that the girl students had been suspended. However, the principal changed his statement on Saturday.
Deputy Director of PU Education of Shivamogga Nagaraj V. Kagalkar told The Hindu that no student had been suspended from the school. The girl students were staging the protest on the campus on Saturday too.
