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LAHORE - A female student has claimed she was denied admission to one of Pakistan’s leading universities because she refused to remove her hijab and show her face to male interviewers.

Mehreen Shafaq had applied for a place on the Government College Univerity’s Applied Management Sciences BA course and was being interviewed by a panel of academics when two of its five members asked to see her face.

The two panel members, course director Najaf Yawar and assistant professor Immad Upal said they needed her to remove her hijab and reveal her face for identification purposes, but the woman refused on religious grounds. It is prohibited in Islam for a woman to reveal her face to men who are ‘na-mehram’.

Ms Shafiq has now brought her complaint to the Lahore High Court where her advocate said yesterday she had been a victim of religious discrimination. It is believed to be the first case of its kind in Pakistan.

The university has denied her allegations and said she had also refused to show her face to a female member of the interview panel. Ms Shafiq has insisted she did offer to reveal her face to the woman academic who was not available for comment yesterday. “I was ready to take off face veil before the female interviewers,” she said.

College sources said they were baffled by the case and could not understand the claim when hundreds of its women students already wear the hijab.

Ms Shafaq has claimed her refusal to remove her hijab for the men on the panel angered the course director who said veiled women were already creating problems on the campus.

Her counsel Sajeel Shahryar, said the rejection of his client was in breach of the constitution which guarantees the right of all to dress as they please. The college’s decision to dismiss her application because she refused to reveal her face to men was an act of discrimination, he said.

The LHC accepted the petition and sought replies from the GCU and Higher Education Department on September 10.