Patna: A leading private school in India’s Jharkhand state has suspended up to 90 students from the school for two days for applying henna on their hands.

The girls had painted various henna designs on their palms to celebrate Raksha Bandhan, a Hindu festival during which sisters tie “charm” bands around the wrists of their brothers.

The order suspending the girls was issued by an English medium, coeducational private school located in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, on Monday.

The girls had reported for classes on Monday when school officials noticed their palms were painted with various henna designs and admonished them for violating school rules.

The henna paintings were quite visible since they had applied them barely a day before, to mark the “Raksha Bandhan” festival, which was celebrated on Sunday.

Within no time, the school administration launched extensive checks at the school and later found a total of 90 girls from Grade Seven to Grade 12 with henna tattoos on their palms and feet.

Subsequently, school principal Rakhi Banerjee called all the girls in her office and gave them a severe dressing down before suspending them from school for two days.

Later, the school administration called the parents and guardians of the girls to school and asked them to take away their children.

Many parents who came to the school and took away their children described the move as a “Taliban-like diktat”.

“The action against students is not fair. In such a situation, they will perhaps never be able to celebrate any festival,” one of the parents Manoj Kumar told the media today. He asked the education department to initiate action against the school administration.

The education department while taking cognisance of the incident has announced it will take suitable action against the school administration.

“It’s totally unfair to expel girl students from school just for applying henna in their hands. We are writing to the local administration to take action against the school administration,” local district education official R.K.P. Singh said.

The principal, however, defended her action saying it was taken to enforce discipline on the campus and bring uniformity among the children.

“We have no enmity with any student. The action was taken just to enforce discipline on the campus. They had already been issued advisory in the past but they didn’t take notice of them,” the school principal said.