Nearly 100 parents protested outside an English-medium co-ed school in Santiniketan on Tuesday morning, alleging that teachers had forcefully removed students’ leggings (stretch trousers worn underneath frocks or uniforms) inside their classrooms on Monday.

Parents of at least 30 female students of the primary section said the teachers had “pulled off” their wards’ leggings. Sources said some of them had filed a verbal complaint at Santiniketan police station on Monday evening calling the teachers’ alleged move “unacceptable”.

While school authorities said it was a disciplinary move aimed at making students adhere to the official dress code, the parents said they hadn’t been informed of it officially and demanded the principal’s removal.

“I was surprised when I found my daughter return home from school without any lower apparel on Monday. When I enquired, she told me that a teacher had pulled her leggings off inside the classroom. This is unacceptable,” said the father of a student.

Sources said 20 angry parents had forced their way up to the principal’s office on Tuesday afternoon and had a verbal exchange demanding her resignation.

“A large number of students had been coming to classes wearing leggings of different colours, and not in grey which the school had instructed,” said a source.

Speaking to this newspaper, a few students said the teachers had asked them to remove their leggings but didn’t touch them physically.

The principal claimed on Tuesday that students were well aware of the dress code and denied any wrong doing by her staff.

“Students were repeatedly requested to come in school in proper uniform. A few of them violated the instructions and were asked to submit their leggings to the teachers. No one forced them, nor did the teachers pull them off,” she said.

District magistrate Moumita Godara Basu said: “I am directing the sub-divisional officer of Bolpur to inquire into what happened with the students of the school.”

Sources in the education department said the school would be asked for a formal explanation shortly.

Ananya Chakraborti, the chairperson of the West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights, told The Telegraph: “We have asked a report from the district magistrate in this connection.”