Urmila Kuwar, a Dalit woman from Aurangabad district, on Tuesday cooked the midday meal for the roughly 300 children enrolled to a middle school, district magistrate Kanwal Tanuj and senior officials of the education department - three years after the principal sacked her because she is a widow.

The plight of Urmila and her reinstatement today on the district magistrate's orders are a mirror image of another in incident in Gopalganj's Kalyanpur government middle school last year where Sunita Kuwar was reinstated after district magistrate Rahul Kumar intervened.

"I can't find the words to express my happiness," Urmila (40) said after she cooked for the officials and the students of the school in Batura village under the jurisdiction of Rafiganj block of Aurangabad, around 150km southwest of Patna.

"She has been reinstated with immediate effect and now she will work as usual," said district magistrate Tanuj, a 2010-batch IAS officer who had in 2013 hit the headlines for sending a Gaya woman police constable - who had sent him vulgar text messages on his official mobile phone when he was posted as sub-divisional officer of Kishanganj - to jail.

Tanuj today ordered the suspension of school headmaster Govind Yadav, initiated departmental proceedings against him, and directed district education officer (DEO) Vinod Kumar Sinha to file a case against the headmaster under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 for harassing a Dalit woman and depriving her of her only source of livelihood.

SAME PLIGHT & SAME HAPPY ENDING

Urmila, a mother of four, had petitioned Tanuj on Monday seeking his intervention. She had said she was removed on the ground that she was a widow, and alleged that the headmaster wanted an extramarital relationship with her. The headmaster also demanded Rs 10,000 bribe from her to allow her to cook at the school, she said.

"I used to get Rs 1,000 per month from the school. That was the only means of livelihood for my family of five," she had earlier told DM Tanuj, who ordered an inquiry.

DEO Sinha said Urmila, who had been working with the school for three years, had taken leave just once - in 2013 to attend to her ailing husband Laldeo Choudhary, who died later the same year.

When Urmila returned to the school after her husband's death, the headmaster didn't allow her to resume duty. She was also told not to come to the school again, the DEO said quoting Urmila, a resident of Batura village.

She tried to convince the headmaster with the help of the local residents, in vain.

"Finally she knocked the door of the district magistrate on Monday and justice was delivered to her within 24 hours," DEO Sinha said.

The students were happy to have Urmila back.

"She takes care of all the students like her children," said Sarita Kumari, a Class VI student. Several other students echoed Sarita.

The children were also wide-eyed that the DM and senior officials broke bread with them.

"They dined with us sitting on the ground," said Sarita.