Teachers strip schoolgirls for missing pocket money

At least 16 schoolgirls were made to strip naked by their teachers in Jharkhand after one student complained she had lost her pocket money, police said on Tuesday.

Officials said the girls in Jharkhand were taken to a room and strip-searched one by one at the weekend, while teachers looked for the missing money, which was a little over a dollar, Ratan Kumar, a senior police officer said from Dhanbad, a mining town in Jharkhand on Tuesday.

"The order to strip and search the girls was not fair," Kumar said by telephone.

Many students were crying and begged for mercy, police said.

On Tuesday, hundreds of people demonstrated in front of the school and students boycotted classes demanding immediate action.

Five teachers and the school principal have gone on leave, police said.

Although banned, corporal punishment is widely used to discipline children in Indian schools.

Last September, a seven-year-old girl was made to strip naked and stand on her desk by her teacher in a New Delhi school for not completing her homework, while other students were asked to boo her.

Last year, a government study backed by the United Nations Children's Fund said two-thirds of children in India are physically abused, mostly at home and in schools.

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