A warden of a school hostel in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoria district allegedly sent two students home because they did not follow her order to clean toilets, PTI reported on Wednesday. The two students have stopped attending classes since then.

The alleged incident took place at Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya when warden Shruti Mishra had sent them home on Monday evening as a punishment for not following the order. Authorities have ordered an inquiry into the allegation and will take action accordingly, Basic Shiksha Adhikari Santosh Dev Pandey said.

“The warden used to make us clean toilets and also do other work,” one of the girls, who studies in Class 7, said. “Whenever we wanted to study, she used foul language and humiliated us. We were fed up. When we refused to clean toilets any more, she threw us out on Monday evening. The next day, we left the school and stopped studying.”

The other girl, a student of Class 6, said the teacher asked other girls in the school to cook and do household work. Her mother Noorjahan said the warden had sent the two children home unaccompanied. “They should have sent someone with them,” she said. “Our house is more than 5 km away from the school and both the girls came all alone from there. On one hand, the government asks parents to send girls to schools and on the other they are ill-treated in the school.”