Asaduddin Owaisi dials Mandya girl heckled for wearing hijab, praises her 'fearlessness'

Muskan, the girl hailed for taking on a group of saffron-stole clad male students who heckled her for entering a Mandya college in burqa, has now received a call from All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi.

The AIMIM chief in a tweet on Wednesday said he spoke to the second-year B.Com student and "conveyed that her act of fearlessness has become a source of courage for us all."

He said he "prayed for her to remain steadfast in her commitment to education while also exercising her freedom of religion and choice."

Owaisi also lauded her parents for "her unapologetic upbringing" and added that he "had the honour of meeting her father at a function during a campaign in the 2018 Karnataka Assembly elections for JD(S)."

Also read: 'Let Karnataka HC decide first': SC declines to urgently list hijab row pleas

A Muslim organisation based out of Tamil Nadu on Wednesday announced that it would confer the ‘Fatima Sheikh Award’ to Muskan, a student from Karnataka’s Mandya district who stood up to a group of students who shouted slogans at her when she entered her college wearing a hijab.

Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, which helped hundreds of families conduct the last rites of their loved ones who died from Covid-19, announced that Muskan will be honoured with the award for “asserting her right” as an Indian citizen.

Muskan had earlier expressed angst over the hijab row that has turned into a law and order issue in Karnataka and said that her education was being ruined over a piece of cloth.

Karnataka Primary and Secondary Education minister B C Nagesh contended that the girl who was heckled at PES College, Mandya during the anti-hijab protests held Tuesday, had provoked male students.

"When the girl was coming outside, (male) students were going inside. They did not want to gherao that girl. But, when she was shouting 'Allahu Akbar' there was not even a single student around her," he said.

"Why did she provoke by saying Allahu Akbar in college campus. We shouldn't encourage (such slogans), whether it is Jai Shri Ram or Allahu Akbar," he said.

Meanwhile, Bengaluru police chief Kamal Pant banned gatherings, demonstrations, protests and all other “peace-disturbing” activities within 200 metres of educational institutions in the city for two weeks.

In a circular on Wednesday, Pant said protests linked to hijab had turned violent at some places, and the same could happen in Bengaluru.

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