Four women have been booked in Gujarat’s Mahisagar district for allegedly assaulting a Dalit student and dragging her by the hair out of a garba event, The Indian Express reported on Monday.

The case was filed on the complaint of 25-year-old Rinku Vankar, a fourth-year student of the Government Engineering College in Gandhinagar.

Vankar said that she had gone to attend a garba event in Bharodi village on Friday with a friend, when three women – Loma Patel, Roshni Patel and Vrushti Patel – allegedly abused her.

“After an argument, they used casteist slurs and said, ‘These people are not equal to us and cannot play garba with us’,” Vankar said in her complaint, according to The Indian Express.

Following this, another woman, Meena Patel, joined them and began assaulting the student, she told the police.

She alleged that the women grabbed her by the hair and dragged her outside while others stopped her from filming the incident.

The four women have been booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to voluntarily causing hurt, crime committed in presence of abettor, criminal intimidation and intentional insult to provoke breach of peace.

Provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act have also been invoked.

Safin Hasan, the superintendent of police in Mahisagar, told The Indian Express that the deputy superintendent of police of the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes cell had initiated an investigation into the matter.

“A Supreme Court precedent and guidelines prohibit the arrest of the accused in cases under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, where the punishment is less than seven years,” The Indian Express quoted Hasan as saying. “We have issued notices to the accused as per the process for preventive action. Their statements are being recorded.”