An Indian school principal allegedly forced 13 students to hold their hands over a candle flame for what she called an attempt to identify a pupil who had stolen money from another classmate, BBC reported on Friday.

According to the report, the incident surfaced after parents of the affected students lodged complaints. The incident occurred at a private school in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.

The principal of the school has been suspended, whereas, local police have also lodged a formal complaint against her. Police officials told BBC that the head teacher had admitted to what happened and claimed that she was trying to find out if one of the nine-year-olds had stolen money from another student.

According to police officials, the teacher was expecting the guilty student to step forward out of fear. However, all the students followed the instructions and put their hands over the flame. Resultantly, at least seven of them sustained burns whereas rest of the students quickly snatched their hands away.

However, at least one of them whose hand the teacher was alleged to have forcibly held over the flame, was injured badly and had to be admitted to hospital for a whole day.

The teacher was ashamed of what happened and said she had made a "big mistake", police said. The head teacher also tendered an apology before the students and their parents.

A few months ago, around 88 schoolgirls in India were allegedly forced to strip in front of other schoolfellows at a girls' school in India's Arunachal Pradesh state.

Corporal punishment is banned in Indian schools but continues to be widespread. It is also not unusual for stripping to be used as a form of punishment in schools.

In March 2017, parents were horrified to learn that 70 girls aged about 10 were stripped naked in a residential school in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh to "check for menstrual blood".