NEW DELHI, March 1: Hundreds of protesters clashed with police on Friday outside a New Delhi hospital where a seven-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted at school was admitted earlier in the day, police said.

Angry youths hurled stones at buses and police, who then used batons to break up the demonstration outside the hospital which is located in a low-income neighbourhood, India’s NDTV channel reported.

“The protesters were angry over the assault on the little girl and were demanding that police act against the culprit,” a police press official said.

The official said the second-grader was sexually assaulted on Friday morning while at school.

After police were called, the child was taken to hospital and later discharged.

“The crowds have dispersed and the situation is normal,” the official said.

Police are investigating the case, he added, declining to comment on media reports that three men — two school-teachers and a security guard — have been detained for questioning.

Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit called the attack “shameful”.

“Rape inside a school is a shocking incident. It is shameful that it happened,” she said.

India has seen a surge in anti-rape demonstrations in recent weeks after thousands took to the streets to protest against police inaction following the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi in December.

Last month, furious villagers in the western state of Maharashtra staged protests after police failed to make headway in a case in which three sisters between six and 11 were raped, killed and dumped in a well.

India’s home minister in an address to parliament on Friday promised a probe into the deaths of the three children and said he was “deeply shocked at the despicable, ghastly and brutal” incident.—AFP