Two teenaged schoolgirls were allegedly strip-searched by their teachers for a missing Rs 50 note while other students and a male employee of the institution peeped through the windows from outside.

The father of one of the girls, both students of Class VII, lodged a general diary with police on Wednesday accusing teachers Kabita Barui and Aditi Maitra of subjecting his daughter and a classmate to the “worst humiliation possible”.

The alleged incident occurred on Tuesday after another student of the girls’ school complained to Barui, who teaches Bengali, about Rs 50 going missing from her pocket.

According to the father who went to the police — the family of the other victim didn’t file a complaint fearing embarrassment — the student who lost Rs 50 did not name either his daughter or the classmate who was asked to strip along with her.

“I am told that the girl only said that she couldn’t find the money; she didn’t even say it was stolen. So on what ground did the teacher suspect my daughter of stealing Rs 50?” he asked.

A classmate of the victims said Barui questioned the duo about the missing note before asking the rest of the class to leave. “Our math teacher (Maitra) had come in by then to take the eighth and last class of the day. The teachers discussed something, took our two classmates to the adjacent classroom and slammed the door shut.”

But with the windows remaining wide open, the rest of the class saw Barui and her colleague ordering the two girls to strip. When they refused, the girls were allegedly threatened with expulsion.

An officer at Nimta police station, in North 24-Parganas, said the teachers forced the girls to take off even their innerwear.

“At that very moment, a male Class IV employee whose duty is to shut the classrooms at the end of the day was standing outside one of the windows. One of the victims cried the moment she noticed the man looking but the teachers were still unmoved,” he said, quoting from the complaint.

The principal of the girls’ school was unavailable for comment. The secretary of the school’s managing committee promised an inquiry “if the guardians of the students give us a written complaint”.

The superintendent of police of North 24-Parganas, Supratim Sarkar, said investigators were speaking to the school authorities “to ascertain the veracity of the complaint”.

Sources said the two accused in the strip-search episode were hospitalised on Wednesday for unspecified ailments.