Police on Saturday hit school girls with batons and pulled them by their hair as the students came out on the street in Firozabad district of Uttar Pradesh to protest the murder of their principal.

About 100 students of S.R Gyaneshwari Higher Secondary school squatted on the national highway near Asafabad crossing on Saturday morning to protest the murder of their principal Santosh Kumar Dhakra on Friday, school authorities said.

As police arrived at the scene to clear the street of the protestors, the boys ran away but the girls in the age group of 6 and 13 hung on, the sources said, adding that the men in uniform resorted to lathi charge against the protestors and pulled them by their hair.

Three girls fell unconscious in the attack, the sources said.

Dhakra was shot dead by four armed assailants in his rented house on Friday night. Dhakra's land lady was injured.
 
District Magistrate Vinay Kumar Srivastava ordered a magesterial inquiry into the killing of the principal.