Following right wing backlash on Indian women wanting to wear hijab in educational institutions in Karnataka, the state government has begun a process of collecting data on Muslim students according to a report in Deccan Herald.

In its report, the Indian publication said that administrative heads of private colleges and government officials were employing efforts to gather data of students belonging to the minority community, particularly those studying from grades 1 to 10.

The officials were accessing data from the Indian Department of Public Instruction on Thursday, according to the report.

Karnataka minister of education Bellur Chandrashekharaiah Nagesh clarified that the data was being collected to present correct number of students impacted by this issue.

“Every day, both the electronic and print media are reporting on the issue with varying figures on the total number of students sent back home for defying the HC’s interim order. Our objective was to see if the students are actually disturbed by the issue or focused on studies. We only wanted to know how many students are actually attending classes unmindful of what is happening around," quoted the minister saying in the report.

Currently, the Indian state is at the centre of agitation which has been spread to countrywide and garnered international attention for imposing restrictions on Muslim girls’ freedom to wear hijab. The controversy started when a pre-university college decided to bar girl students in hijabs from entering the classroom last month.

Following the growing violence in the Indian state, educational institutions were closed. Soon, the Karnataka High Court passed an interim order allowing the opening of colleges but that no student should insist on wearing “religious clothes” until the time the court decides the matter. The court ordered it while hearing a petition on the right of students to wear a hijab in schools.

As the schools in Karnataka reopened on Monday, videos surfaced in which Muslim female students wearing hijab were being turned away and barred from entering in schools.

The report quoted an official from the Karnataka ministry who had a different version.

“Elected representatives may demand the data on the floor of the House as also the high Court as part of the ongoing hearing,” quoted the official as saying in the report.

A private college principal, who was asked to submit data on Muslim students, was quoted in the report. That principal said the data would go into labelling college areas as “sensitive zones,” considering the hijab ban.

The detailed data on Muslim students collected by the government showed that “a total of 162 girl students were sent home for defying the high court’s interim order in the state at 14 schools” on February 17.

At least 1,739,742 Muslim students were studying in various government-run schools across the state, revealed the data. It further stated that Bengaluru South reported the highest number of minority students with more than 0.15 million, followed by Kalaburagi with at least 0.13 million and Bengaluru North with at least 0.12 million students. Chamarajanagar district reported the lowest number of Muslim students at 9,603.