With the Karnataka hijab issue making headlines for some time now within and beyond India, al-Qaeda has now entered the scene as its chief appears to praise Muskan Khan, the Muslim student who was heckled for wearing the hijab by some Hindu boys wearing saffron scarves.
Ayman Al Zawahiri also criticized the governments of Bangladesh and Pakistan for not defending them.
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday said he has asked top police officials to probe the video clip.
"The forces are at work from the past to create unrest among the people by raking up issues against the state and national rules. The video clip said to be of the al-Qaeda chief, is part of it," Bommai was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Referring to the battle against the "enemies" of Islam, he suggested building awareness as the first step to succeed in this regard, reports The Indian Express.
“We must realise that the governments imposed on us, specifically in Pakistan and Bangladesh, do not defend us; rather, they defend the very enemies that have empowered them to fight against us,” said the terror group chief in an almost nine-minute video released by al-Qaeda mouthpiece As-Sahab Media on Tuesday.
Zawahiri said: “We must stop being deceived by the mirage of Hindu democracy of India, which, to begin with, was never more than a tool to oppress Islam.”
The video starts with a clip of her taking on the mob, followed by his address in which he only talks about the hijab issue.
Praising Bibi Muskan Zainab Khan, Zawahiri says her “defiant slogan of Allahu Akbar” as she challenged “a mob of Hindu polytheists” had “emboldened the spirit of jihad” and reawakened the Muslim community.
He says she even inspired him to write a poem, which he recites at the end of the video.
Muskan’s father Mohammed Hussain Khan said the video would only create confusion and asked the terror outfit to spare his family and leave them alone.
Zawahiri says in the Arabic video clip with English subtitles: “She (Muskan) has unveiled the reality and unmasked the nature of the conflict between the chaste and pure Muslim ummah and the degenerate and depraved polytheist and atheist enemies it confronts.
“May Allah reward her greatly for imparting a practical lesson to Muslim sisters plagued by an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the decadent western world. May Allah reward her for exposing the reality of Hindu India and the deception of its pagan democracy,” he added.
What's happening in Karnataka?
In Karnataka, run by BJP, 12% of the population is Muslim. They allege that the state government and its supporters have persistently been oppressing the minority community through hate campaigns in recent months.
The video of Muskan Khan, a student of Karnataka's Mandya pre-University college, confronting the saffron-clad radical Hindu students surfaced on February 8 on Twitter, and soon went viral, sparking mass protests.
Her protest came amid tension over a Karnataka government order, issued on February 5, asking all schools to follow dress codes set by the management. Several schools in Udupi deny entry to Muslim girls wearing hijab citing the order, prompting protests from parents and students.
The order meant that the government did not ban the hijab but only delegated the powers to decide the school uniform to the College Development Committees (CDC), Advocate General Prabhuling Navadgi told the Karnataka High Court.
During the hearing, he also argued that hijab was not an essential religious practice of Islam, preventing its use did not violate Article 25 of the Indian Constitution and that the government order challenged by a few Muslim girls was in accordance with the law.
Before the High Court issued an order, on February 21, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said people of all religions should accept the school dress codes.
However, Hindu hardliners continued aggressive campaigns to show support for the hijab ban.
On March 15, the Karnataka High Court upheld the restriction on Muslim women wearing a hijab in educational institutions. One of the three judges on the bench was Muslim.
The court ruled that the right to wear a hijab is not constitutionally protected; hijab is not an essential practice in Islam; prescribing a uniform is the right of the institution; the government order is not discriminatory, although it could have been better drafted; and that no case would be filed against the college authorities over the hijab assault of Muskan Khan.
Even though the hijab row has apparently been quelled after the court order, the Karnataka police's drives against mosques, temples, churches, bars, restaurants and industries for noise pollution last week have drawn flak.
The move came in the face of demands by right-wing groups -- Bajrang Dal and Sriram Sena -- for a ban on using loudspeakers in mosques in the southwestern Indian state.
Bengaluru Police Commissioner Kamal Pant on April 5 said that several microphones had been seized from religious places, and that the drives would continue.
The same day, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, however, said that the High Court order was against the use of loudspeakers not just in mosques, but in all religious places.
Minister of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj recently said any solution to the issue can be found by taking the Muslim community into confidence.
"It will be good if Muslim community leaders think about it and use speakers within the mosques, in a way it doesn't disturb others," he said.
Several days earlier, some right-wing groups called for boycotting halal meat, on the occasion of Varshadodaku, the day after Ugadi, when many communities have a non-vegetarian feast. Both Varshadodaku and Ugadi are Hindu rituals.
They opposed the use of halal meat on Varshadodaku, as according to them, it is offered to Allah first and the same cannot be offered to Hindu gods later.
Meanwhile, the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services Department in Karnataka has asked the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to direct all slaughterhouses and chicken shops in the city to ensure that animals are mandatorily stunned before they are slaughtered.
Stunning is a process where various methods of shock are used to "stun" the animal so that it becomes unconscious before slaughter. Many, however, say that this would make it non-halal.
