Sabarimala row: Tension grips Kerala; Protesters demand CM Vijayan’s resignation

mangaloretoday network

Kerala, Jan 02, 2019: The women Bindu (42), a CPI (ML) activist from Kozhikode district and Kanakadurga (44), said to be a civil supplies employee from Malappuram claimed to have begun their climb around midnight and reached the temple at 3.45 am, according to Yahoonews reports.

 

According to the video footage, the women have not climbed the sacred 18 steps, used by pilgrims who take the 41-day vow and carry the sacred offering of ’irumudikettu’. They have used a side entrance, used by VIPs and the media, which gets them directly in front of the sopanam and into the sanctum of the temple.

Widespread protests have broken in Kochi, Kottarakara, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram.

Five BJP Mahila Morcha members protesting against two women entering Sabarimala Temple today, stopped from entering the state secretariat by police in Thiruvananthapuram.

Malayalam writer NS Madhavan just tweeted that the chief priest of Sabarimala should be removed for "misogyny and serious contempt of court". "Sabarimala closed for purification?" he asked. "Is this Kerala or some place in cow land? Women are new Dalits?"

"Have the Communists desecrated the Sabarimala shrine by facilitating the entry of women of restricted age group into the temple? Devastating, if true," said Amit Malviya, the BJP’s IT cell head. Kerala is ruled by a Left Democratic Front government.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Kerala president PS Sreedharan Pillai has called for protests after two women entered the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.

The Sabarimala sanctum has reopened for pilgrims after purification rituals.

The women claimed that Kerala police had ensured their security en route to Sabarimala on Wednesday. This is the second time that both the women attempted visiting the Sabarimala hill shrine. Their first attempt was abandoned after protests from Ayyappa devotees.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan confirmed that the women went inside the sanctum sanctorum. "There were hurdles for women to climb and enter Sabarimala temple. If they have entered the temple today, there must not have been any hurdles. It is true that they have entered. Police had been given instructions to provide protection to any woman who wants to climb, Vijayan said.

Ayyappa Dharma Sena leader Rahul Easwar, who spearheaded the protests against the apex court’s verdict allowing the entry of women below 50, said the chances of the two women making it inside the shrine are "extremely less" and that they would verify the footage and take appropriate action.

Women in the menstrual age group of 10 to 50 years were traditionally barred from visiting the Sabarimala temple. However, the Supreme Court had on September 28 reversed the verdict. This had led to widespread protests across Kerala. Over a dozen women tried but were stopped by a wall of protesters less than a km from the temple’s entrance.