'Our daughter started crying when she returned home. She told us that her teachers forced her to go for a hair-cut against her will. How can they do these experiments on our children,' said Mamta, mother of a student Jyoti.

The education department runs the adult education programme under which various vocational courses like health-care and beauty culture are taught. A workshop under this programme was going on in the school and 'hair-cuts of the students were done to impart practical experience to the participants', an official of the adult education department said.

However, seeking to refute all these allegations, the official said: 'We did not force anyone to have a hair-cut. The students go for it on their own.'