Hours after Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri praised student Muskan Khan for standing in defence of her headscarf and chanting ‘Allah-hu-Akbar’, Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra said the video statement proves the involvement of “unseen hands” behind the row.
Home and Police department officials are keeping a watch on developments and track things in this connection, he added.
“We have been saying this from the beginning, and the High Court too during the hijab verdict had suggested the possibility of some unseen hands behind the hijab row…now it is proved, because Al-Qaeda people are now releasing videos,” PTI quoted Jnanendra as saying.
Muskan Khan was heckled by a group of students
He further said that the cops are keeping an eye on the development.
In February, Muskan Khan, a second-year BCom student in Mandya was heckled by a group of students, wearing a saffron shawl, for entering the college with a hijab.
When students chanted “Jai Shri Ram”, Muskan retorted by shouting “Allah-hu-Akbar”. Following this, college authorities intervened and brought the situation under control.
Condemning the statement by a terror group about India’s internal matters, Higher Education Minister C N Ashwath Narayan said that action will be taken against organisations and people linked to them.
‘We must stop being deceived by mirage of pagan Hindu democracy’
Targeting Indian democracy, Al-Zawahiri said, “We must stop being deceived by the mirage of the pagan Hindu democracy”.
Zawahiri also read out a poem that he says he wrote for “our Mujahid sister” and for her “brave feat”.
“May Allah rewards her for exposing the reality of Hindu India and the deception of its pagan democracy,” the Al-Qaeda chief said.
The hijab row began in January at a government PU College in Udupi where six students who attended classes wearing headscarves in violation of the stipulated dress code were sent out. It later spread to a few other colleges in nearby Kundapur and Byndoor.
The Karnataka High Court later dismissed all writ petitions filed by Muslim girl students seeking permission to wear a hijab in colleges, saying the hijab is not a part of essential religious practices of Islam.
