The Uttar Pradesh Police has registered a first information report against 24 people for allegedly vacating students and teachers of a government primary school in Muzaffarnagar to keep stray cows, PTI reported on Thursday. The incident comes a month after Chief Minister Adityanath had directed officials to make immediate arrangements for shelter facilities for stray cows.

Shamli District Magistrate Akhilesh Kumar said villagers in Kudana herded the cows inside the school on Wednesday and closed it. The education department, in a complaint, has said that students and teachers were asked to vacate the building.

According to unidentified teachers of the school, classes were conducted in the open. Kumar said police are searching for those named in the FIR.

Action will be taken against those who disrupted school work, Superintendent of Police (Shamli) Ajay Kumar Pandey told PTI.

In December, the Adityanath government had sanctioned Rs 10 crore to each of the 16 municipal corporations to arrange for shelter facilities for stray cattle, and Rs 1.2 crore to every district for setting up new cow shelters. The chief minister had also ordered that encroachments on grazing land be removed immediately.

Farmers in the state have for long complained of stray cattle damaging their crops.