Hijab row: Rallies thwarted, police detain protesters in Gujarat

New Delhi, 13 Feb 2022 [Fik/News Sources]: As support grows for students mired in the row over wearing hijab in Karnataka’s educational institutes, another rally planned in Gujarat was curbed by the police. Saturday saw protests in this backdrop at many locations across the country. The hijab rally planned in Surat, Gujarat on Saturday by various groups of the Muslim community and was spearheaded by the city arm of the AIMIM.

However, police did not allow the rally and detained Surat unit president of AIMIM, Wasim Qureshi along with Nazma Khan, a woman representative of the party, and another 20 female protesters. In a bite to mediapersons, Nazma Khan said, “What to wear and what not to is the choice of an individual. The constitution does not allow anyone to restrict any individual from choosing the way one wants to dress.”
“Like other religions, Muslim women also have sartorial freedom,” she said.

In the second incident in Ahmedabad, AIMIM party activists were to launch a signature campaign in support of hijab-related incidents in Karnataka. The police detain them before the signature campaign began. “We were picked up from our office and taken away by the police on Saturday,” said a party worker. The Ahmedabad Police have detained over 200 people in the city so far.