Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said the country is robbing the future of daughters by letting the hijab come in the way of girl education.

Coming out in support of hijab-wearing Muslim girl students not allowed entry in educational institutes in Karnataka, he said the goddess Saraswati does not differentiate and gives knowledge to all.

"By letting students' hijab come in the way of their education, we are robbing the future of the daughters of India.

Ma Saraswati gives knowledge to all. She doesn't differentiate. #SaraswatiPuja," Gandhi said on Twitter.

Some 40 women students wearing the hijab protested at the gate of Bhandarkars Arts and Science Degree College in Kundapur, a coastal town in Karnataka's Udupi. The staff had refused to let them in unless they took off their headscarves. They missed their classes for the second day on Friday.

The college has an instruction manual that says: "Girl students are permitted to wear the scarf inside the campus, however the colour of the scarf should match with the dupatta, and no student is allowed to wear any other cloth inside the campus including the college canteen".

The principal, Narayan Shetty, said he wanted to preserve harmony on campus. "I am a government employee. I will have to follow all the instructions of the government. I was told that some students will enter the college wearing saffron shawls, and if harmony is disturbed in the name of religion, the principal will be held responsible," he said.

The Karnataka government allows state-run colleges to frame their own guidelines on the matter. Some government colleges allow Muslim women students to wear the hijab or any headscarf on the campus. But there ambiguity is with whether they can wear it inside the classroom. The students have pointed out that there is no guidelines on this and they can wear inside the classroom.

On Thursday, another college in Kundapur saw identical scenes when a group of hijab-wearing girls stood outside the gates for six hours. The Junior PU Government College had allowed hijabs in class until two days ago, the girls complained.

The hijab protests began weeks ago at the Government Girls PU College in Udupi district when six students alleged that they had been barred from classes for insisting on wearing the headscarf