Pakistan summoned India’s envoy to communicate Islamabad’s worries about the “reprehensible act” of forbidding Muslim students in Karnataka, India, from wearing the hijab.
Hijabs were banned from a government-run high school in India’s state last month, which quickly spread to other schools in the area.
Hindutva protesters in the southern Indian state of Karnataka also heckled and jeered at a Muslim student on Tuesday.
Islamabad displayed its worries about Muslim women being banned from wearing hijab in schools in Karnataka, according to a statement from the Foreign Office (FO). The government expressed its “deep concern and condemnation” at this “deeply reprehensible act,” and the Indian Chargé d’affaires were summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Islamabad stressed how all this is a part of an overall exclusionist and majoritarian strategy aimed at dehumanising and demonising Muslim women, which the Chargé d’affaires was asked to express to the Indian government.
Pakistan also addressed concerns over religious intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatisation of Muslims to the Indian envoy. This was done two years after the 2020 Delhi riots that killed 50 Muslims.
More and more Muslim families are fleeing out of their houses a year after the Delhi riots.
Hindutva leaders in India have called for the mass murder/exclusion of Muslims at the recently held Dharam Sansad in Haridwar, Uttarakhand. The Pakistani government, as per the statement of the Foreign Office, is also concerned about the BJP leadership’s “deafening silence” and “absence of discernible action” against those proponents who openly called for the genocide of Muslims.
Pakistan stressed that India’s government must fulfil its obligation and take sufficient measures to safeguard Muslim women’s safety, security, and well-being, to the Indian envoy, according to the statement.
“Assam, Tripura, Gurugram, and Uttarakhand were encouraged to take quick action against anti-Muslim violence, offenders and abettors, as well as to provide justice to the victims of the Delhi riots,” the FO stated.
At the same time, Pakistan has pleaded with the international community to take note of India’s “worrying degree of Islamophobia” and exert pressure on Indian authorities to stop systemic abuses of human rights against the country’s minorities.
Works at The Truth International Magazine. My area of interest includes international relations, peace & conflict studies, qualitative & quantitative research in social sciences, and world politics. Reach@ [email protected]
