Teachers of a government school in Davanagere have allegedly forced some students to clean toilets despite the Karnataka education department’s stern warning against such practices often witnessed in the state.

A video clip, allegedly shot by one of the teachers, shows around 10 girls clad in their uniform cleaning dirty toilets at a government school in Mellekatte village in Davanagere, around 250km from here.

The girls are seen scrubbing the Indian toilet bowls with broomsticks and pouring water from plastic buckets.

While the exact date of the incident is not known, the education department on Tuesday initiated a probe into the incident and promised to take stringent action against the erring teachers and the school headmistress.

G. Kotresh, deputy director of public instruction of Davanagere, told reporters that the incident came to his attention from the video clip that he requested not to be published.

The block education officer visited the school yesterday (Tuesday) and conducted an inquiry. I will register a police complaint and take strict disciplinary action once I receive the departmental inquiry report,” Kotresh said.

Incidents like this have become a cause for concern for the Congress government, especially since the Opposition BJP and Janata Dal Secular have been accusing it of turning a blind eye to such violations of child rights in schools.

The department of school education and literacy had in December issued an order prohibiting the use of students to clean toilets and warned heads of institutions of stringent action if they failed to abide by the rules.

In the first reported case of violation of the norms, the headmistress of Maulana Azad English School in Gulbarga was arrested after several students were made to clean toilets on the school campus.

The education department conducted an inquiry and registered a police complaint against her.

When confronted, the teacher allegedly told the authorities that she was left with no option as the school didn’t employ any cleaning staff.

Four employees, including the principal and arts teacher, were arrested in Kolar in December, before the department’s order. The authorities of Morarji Desai residential School at Yaluvahalli in Kolar district, some 80km from here, had got six children, three of them Dalits, to manually clean the soak pit.

In December, the headmaster of a government school in Shimoga, the home district of primary education minister Madhu Bangarappa, was arrested for forcing students to clean toilets.

That incident followed just days after Bangarappa’s stern warning.

In a third incident in quick succession in December, the headmistress of a government school in north Bangalore was booked in a similar case.