Sabarimala row: Temple opens on second day, women stopped

Sabarimala (Kerala) - Police have also promulgated section in four places to check any kind of protest and violence.

Women of the ages hitherto barred from entering the famed Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala stayed away for a second day on Thursday following uneasy calm in Kerala amid a dawn-to-dusk shutdown called by outfits owing loyalty to Hindu groups and the BJP.
Tension prevailed on Thursday a day after the opening of the short five-day pilgrimage season in the wake of the protest shutdown against the alleged police attack on protesters on Wednesday even as a senior member of the Sabarimala priest's family urged women from the 10-50 age group to respect tradition and not visit the deity Ayyappa shrine.
While on Wednesday a couple of women devotees were prevented from undertaking the trek to the hill temple and some women journalists were stopped from proceeding with their coverage amidst violence by activists of Hindu groups affiliated to the BJP and RSS, no women devotee of the ages that have been allowed darshan by the Supreme Court turned up on Thursday.
At the end of the day, A. Padmakumar, President of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), the custodian of the temple, told the media they were ready to go to any extent to resolve the issue.
"Tomorrow we are having a meeting and we wish to ask if the protests will be called off if we decide to file a review petitition against the Supreme Court verdict (allowing women of all ages)?" asked Padmakumar, also a senior CPI-M leader.
On Thursday morning, Suhasini Raj, who works as the India reporter for The New York Times, along with a foreign national colleague, managed to go past the Pamba gateway but was stopped midway by angry devotees who erected a human wall before her.
"I had reached half way and then the protests grew stronger. I was hit by a stone and then we decided to return. The police had provided us all the security," said Raj, who had earlier pointed out that she came to do her job to speak to devotees.

• India