Up to 34 girls in India had to be hospitalized after being brutally beaten by a group of boys and their parents on Saturday afternoon when they complained of sexual harassment, local media report.

The victims aged are all said to be teenagers between 12 and 16, from a boarding school in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. The incident unfolded when a group of local boys allegedly started making lewd comments towards some girls in a playground. The girls reportedly told the school warden, who threatened to file a police complaint.

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About two hours later, the boys returned with their parents and started beating up the girls. Three teachers are believed to have been attacked too.

“They dragged us by our ponytails, assaulted [us] with bamboo sticks and kicked and punched,” said Gudia, among the girls hospitalized following the attack, the Guardian reports.

She added the girls were “totally unarmed” and had “nothing to protect” themselves with.

“I saw many of my friends lying on the ground and crying with pain,” Gudia said.

While most of the girls were discharged from hospital, a local official quoted by the British newspaper said many are understood to have been left in shock and fear of being further attacked.

Conflicting reports say between three and nine people, women, were arrested over the attack.

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