As the Supreme Court continues to hear a batch of petitions on the hijab ban in Karnataka’s educational institutions, the human rights body People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) carried out a study to understand the impact of the ban on students in urban and rural areas of the state.The PUCL said in its report that the ban – which has compelled many Muslim women to choose between their attire and education – has taken a toll on them. Many of them are even scared to go to college alone, because of the harassment they have been facing after the high court upheld the government’s order on the hijab ban.The Wire spoke to PUCL researchers on how they understood the impact of the hijab ban on the ground in several districts of Karnataka.“In each district, there’s a certain nuance or a certain struggle that these girls are facing [after the hijab ban]. And if we don’t stand with these girls at this point, we’ll completely fail as a civil society…and to be able to fight with them, we need to understand the gravity of it,” one of the researchers told The Wire’s Sumedha Pal.The researchers also pointed out that until now, the impact of the hijab ban, data collection etc. had been led only by Muslim civil society organisations; however, it’s important to understand that “this is not only a Muslim issue, this is each one of our issue.”