Bihar, Dec 19 (Agencies) : For more than a week in Bihar's Gopalganj district, a woman was barred from cooking mid-day meals for students at a government school by local villagers, allegedly because she is a widow.

Residents of the district's Kalyanpur village not only protested against the preparation of mid-day meals by her, they even forced the school to shut down since last Wednesday.

However, on Friday, after intervention from district authorities, the woman was reinstated by the school and the villagers dropped their protest.

Gopalganj District Magistrate Rahul Kumar, not only led a delegation to the school to convince protesting villagers, he also sat down on the floor along with students and had the mid-day meal prepared by the woman.

"I along with district education officer visited the school today and ate the midday meal prepared by the lady for students," Mr Kumar said.

The widow, who has two minor children, had approached the district magistrate on Thursday.

The woman, along with five others, cooks food for children in the school under the mid-day scheme, and is paid Rs. 1000 per month as her salary.

The government middle school in Kalyanpur, about 25 kilometres from district headquarters and 200 kilometres from Patna, has about 734 students from Class 1 to Class 8.