The hostel warden and five officials of a residential school were transferred and show-caused on Wednesday, two days after 61 of its girl students walked 17 km at night and complained about atrocities committed on them to the authorities.

An official said that besides the warden, four teachers and the accountant of Kasturba Gandhi Girls School at Khuntpani in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district were also served show-cause notices and transferred, while the night guard was removed.

Teachers and an accountant from other schools of the district have already joined in their places, District Education Officer Lalan Singh said.

“We have served show-cause notices and transferred the erring warden, four contractual teachers and the accountant while removing the guard following the complaints of the students,” Singh said.

They were asked to reply to the notices within 24 hours.

The class 11 students of the school sneaked out of their hostel at night and reached the collectorate in Chaibasa at around 7 am on Monday to lodge a complaint with Deputy Commissioner Ananya Mittal, who had asked District Superintendent of Education (DSE) Abhay Kumar Shil to look into the matter.

The students told the DSE that they were forced to eat stale food, clean toilets and students of lower classes were compelled to sleep on the floor on just mats in the prevailing cold, and they were beaten up by the warden if they protested.

They also alleged that the warden compelled the students to lie to senior officials when they visit the school for inspection.

It was found during the investigation that neither the guard nor the teachers were aware that 61 girls were not in the hostel on Monday morning till the district authorities contacted them after getting the complaints.

Singh said a two-member committee was formed to probe whether some of the girls instigated others to lodge the complaint that way.

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