Amravati: The girl students of a government residential school in Maharashtra's Amravati district, where nearly 600 students left for home claiming that some girls were "possessed", will soon move to a new hostel building on the campus, an official said on Wednesday.

According to sources, the existing hostel for girls at the 'ashram' school at Doma in Chikhaldara taluka has long been overcrowded.

Additional Tribal Commissioner Sandip Golait said a new separate hostel for girls has been built on the school premises. The girl students will be relocated there starting September 1, he said.

The new hostel building has bunk beds to accommodate all girl students, the official said.

Earlier, the authorities were faced with an unusual situation after nearly 600 tribal students of the residential school went home, claiming that a few girls there were "possessed", which officials had attributed to mental stress.

The episode began after four girls started behaving strangely on July 22, crying and laughing uncontrollably, which officials suspect could be linked to mental stress.

The residential school in the Melghat region in northern Maharashtra, over 700 km from Mumbai, houses 810 boys and girls, officials had said.

Several theories began floating after the unusual behaviour of some girls, according to a psychological report prepared by the authorities. Some women from the village also subsequently developed similar mental symptoms, it said.

There is a belief among the students and locals that there was a 'mahua' tree at the site of the ashram school, on which spirits used to reside. The school management cut down the tree, and it is believed that the spirits became angry and were troubling the students, as per the report.

Another reason given was that the temple of their deity behind the ashram school was affected/encroached upon by the school's drainage channel, upsetting the deity.

The third reason being cited is that an Adivasi youth died in a field near the school and his spirit became a ghost, the report said.

It attributed the unusual situation to superstition, fear, stress and local beliefs about spirits.

Senior office-bearers from Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti, which works towards eradication of blind faith, also met the students and counselled them, an official had said.

This report was published from a syndicated wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.