Kalaburagi/Bengaluru, Apr 22: Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday termed as stray incident two students not appearing for the second PUC (class 12) exam after being denied permission to enter the examination hall as they were wearing hijabs.
"I'm not aware of it, it may be a stray incident. Our Education Minister will look into it," the Chief Minister, who was in Kalaburagi district to attend BJP meetings, told reporters when asked about the girls not writing the exam after not being allowed to do so as they had the hijabs on.
Asked if the two students would be given another chance to write the exam, he said, "Whatever the Education Minister will say on this will be our (govt) stand."
The two girls arrived at the exam centre by wearing hijab. They insisted that they be allowed to write the exam wearing hijab but the college authorities, citing the High Court order, denied them entry.
Later, the girls returned home.
As there is a ban on hijab or any cloth linked to religious identity, the authorities made arrangements at exam centres for the Muslim girls to remove their headscarves before entering the halls.
The girls who turned up at the examination wearing hijabs said they would remove them in the separate enclosure and wear them again after the exam is over.
The second-year pre-university examinations started in the State today amid tight security and in the shadow of the hijab row.
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Nahan (HP) (PTI): A suspect has been taken into custody after a woman's partially burnt body was found in a forest near a police battalion camp in Himachal Pradesh's Sirmour district, police said.
The body of the woman, who is stated to be in her late 30s, was spotted in the dense forest of the Karaunde Wali Ghati area near Dhaula Kuan by locals on Wednesday morning. The identity of the deceased has not yet been established.
The accused in the case was taken into custody at Bata Bridge in Paonta Sahib on Wednesday evening following scanning of the CCTV footage of the area coupled with inputs from Haryana Police, police said.
According to police, the accused is a resident of Barara town in Ambala district of Haryana. A case of kidnapping has already been registered against him in Ambala.
Sirmour District Superintendent of Police Nischint Singh Negi said one person has been taken into custody following contact with Haryana Police.
Postmortem examination of the woman is scheduled to be conducted on Thursday at the Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar Government Medical College at Nahan.
Police are currently investigating whether the woman was murdered in Barara itself, and if her body was subsequently dumped in the Paonta forest and set on fire.
