Video screen grab from YouTube: Police officers outside the school where more than 30 girls were beaten by a mob

NEW DELHI: Thirty-four Indian schoolgirls aged between 12 and 16 were taken to hospital after being beaten with sticks by a group of boys, along with the boys' mothers and neighbors, who had harassed them earlier in the day, authorities said. The assault happened on Saturday outside a government-run boarding school in the eastern state of Bihar, police told Reuters.

Ten people, including four women, were arrested, Supaul's police chief told Reuters. The boys, aged between 12 and 16, entered a field near the school in the village of Darpakha where the girls were playing on Saturday and shouted obscene comments.

The boys left after the girls protested, only to return later with a group of around 20 people armed with sticks. "The boys brought their mothers and others from the neighborhood," Baidyanath Yadav, Supaul's district chief, told Reuters. The older women also attacked the girls, he said. The girls returned yesterday to school, where authorities have beefed up security. - Reuters