Several boarders of a school in East Midnapore’s Contai were allegedly beaten up by goons on Tuesday evening in a supposed retaliation to complaints that the goons had been using their campus to drink and “create nuisance” after sunset.

Four students were admitted to hospital on Tuesday evening. Of them, the condition of one of them is serious.

A group of boarders at the Nayaput Sudhirkumar High School near Contai had protested on the campus earlier this week against the “unwanted” activities by “local youths, including some ex-students of the school”, on a part of their campus every day after sunset.

“These very people, in bold retaliation, broke into our hostel around 7pm on Tuesday and beat us up severely,”said one student.

“They not only drink, but play loud music and bring in friends who are not of an academic disposition. All of this was hard to watch under our noses,” another boarder added.

School authorities filed an FIR against nine youths at Contai police station.

Parents of the boarders on Wednesday expressed anger that no arrest had been made nearly 24 hours after the incident.

Sources said students of the hostel had recently reported to authorities that there were regular drinking sessions every evening in front of the school hostel.

”Among the outsiders, some former students of this school are also involved in drinking and other unwanted activities on the campus in front of our hostel,” said a Class X boarder.

“We asked them to immediately stop such activities in front of the hostel every evening and said we will complain to the headmaster of the school. Enraged by this, these outsiders stormed into the hostel to teach us a lesson and beat us severely on Tuesday evening. We do not feel safe now,” he added.

Headmaster Basant Kumar Ghori stated that a team of Jhunput coastal police came to the spot after receiving the information about the attack on Tuesday night.

Contai sub-divisional police officer Somnath Saha said that based on the complaint of the school authorities, the police of Jhunput coastal police station have started an investigation.