Angry parents scuffled with Indian police in riot gear at an international school near New Delhi on Saturday after a staff member was arrested for slitting the throat of a seven-year-old boy.

The body of the boy was found in the bathroom of the Ryan International school in Gurgaon on Friday.

Police said that the boy was attacked with a knife after resisting a sexual attack allegedly by a bus attendant at the school.

“The accused has confessed to the crime during questioning,” Simardeep Singh, a deputy commissioner of police in Gurgaon, told AFP.

The boy resisted the sexual assault and the attacker decided to kill him to cover up the crime, Singh said. The suspect had been working at the school for eight months, the officer said.

Parents of the nearly 1,000 students at the school tried to storm the campus on Saturday to demand the arrest of school managers over the case.

But hundreds of police in riot gear guarded the building to avoid a repeat of violence on Friday when chairs and cupboards were smashed.

The school has suspended the principal and assured cooperation with the investigators.

Authorities said that they had launched an investigation into security at the school.

Ranked among the top educational institutions in the country, Ryan International runs nearly 150 schools across India and in the United Arab Emirates.

The school was caught in another controversy last year after a six-year-old student was found dead in a water tank at its New Delhi establishment.

Police had arrested the principal, a teacher and three other staff members for negligence in that case.

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