CHENNAI: The Selaiyur police are probing a complaint from a Tambaram resident that a worker at a private school in the area had asked his wife to remove her hijab when the couple went to the institution on Thursday to get their son admitted to LKG.
In his complaint, Ashiq Meeran of Tambaram said he and his wife went to the school in East Tambaram to seek admission for their four-year-old son. As they were waiting near the office room, the complaint said, a member of the school staff came to them and asked Meeran’s wife to go out and remove her hijab, saying it was not allowed on the premises.
A shocked Meeran then took the issue to the principal who reiterated that a rule was in place under which nobody was allowed to wear a hijab in the school, the complaint stated. Later, Meeran’s family along with several members of their community went to the Selaiyur police station and filed a complaint against the school. “We have received a complaint. We have not registered any case so far and a probe is on,” said a senior police officer attached to the station.
Advocate M Sridhar said that no one had the right to interfere in the issue. “This is unnecessary and moreover this is an offence and the perpetrators can be booked under IPC section 295A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting). Every custom, tradition and culture should be respected and should be allowed to be followed by people in their own way,” he said. In February, during the local body election in Madurai, police arrested a booth agent for trying to get a woman to remove her hijab and acting in a way that hurt her religious sentiments.
