A 13-year-old Dalit girl in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district was forced to write her exams seated on a staircase—excluded from her classroom because she had started menstruating, leading to the suspension of the headmistress of the school.

A video recorded by her mother shows the girl writing her exam on the stairs, away from her classmates. It was shared widely on social media Wednesday.

The Class VII student from the Arunthathiyar community was not allowed inside her classroom at Swamy Chidbhavanda Matric Higher Secondary School in Senguttaipalayam village.

Her teacher had informed the principal that she had attained puberty.

“If someone gets their period, does that mean they cannot sit inside the classroom and write their exams?” her mother is heard asking in the video, reported by the Indian Express. “Should they sit on the road and write?”

The girl had started menstruating on April 5. She wrote her science exam on April 7, and her social science paper on April 9—both on the staircase.

A senior police officer told the media: “Initial inquiry revealed that the mother had been aware of the arrangement. The girl, currently in Class VIII, began menstruating on April 5. She was made to take her science exam on April 7 and her social science paper on April 9 while seated on a staircase.”

The school claimed it acted on the mother’s request for separate arrangements.

But the mother says she was not told her daughter would be made to sit without a desk, outside the classroom.

“While the school insists the decision was based on the mother’s preference, the mother was offended at seeing her daughter writing the exam without even a desk. We have issued a show-cause notice in parallel to the probe by the school education department,” the officer added.

On Thursday, Tamil Nadu’s school education minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi said: “A departmental inquiry has been initiated against the private school. Oppression of children in any form will not be tolerated. The department will support the girl.”

The Coimbatore Police registered a case against three people under sections of the Prevention of Atrocities (SC/ST) Act, 1989.