Bengaluru, April 6 : Al Qaeda has praised a Karnataka student who insisted on wearing a hijab in educational institutions and condemned in the same breath not only India but several Muslims countries too. A purported Al Qaeda video claimed its chief Ayman al-Zawahiri as praising the Karnataka student for standing up in defence of hijab and for shouting ‘Allah-Hu-Akbar’ when she was heckled by a group of boys wearing saffron scarfs. Appearing in the nine-minute video, Al-Zawahiri accused “the pagan Hindu democracy of India” which he alleged wanted to “oppress Muslims” and also denounced countries like Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh as “enemies of Islam” for their anti-hijab policies. BDN MR