clashes as two women make it to sabarimala
Kerala tense as traditionalists go on rampage
thiruvananthapuram — Protests and violence erupted in Kerala on Wednesday after two women defied traditionalists to enter one of Hinduism’s holiest temples for the first time since a landmark court ruling.
Police fired teargas, stun grenades and water cannon as protests and clashes between rival groups erupted across Kerala, local media reported, with several officers injured.
The Supreme Court in September overturned a decades-old ban on women of menstruating age — deemed as those between 10 and 50 — setting foot inside the goldplated Sabarimala temple.
In recent weeks Hindu traditionalists — backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party — have prevented attempts by women to access the hilltop site. But in a surprise pre-dawn operation on Wednesday that was heralded by activists but that enraged conservative devotees, police enabled two women to penetrate the temple and then leave again undetected, officials confirmed. —
> Bindu is a college lecturer and CPI(mL) activist from Kozhikode district’s Koyilandy. > Kanaka Durga is a civil supplies employee from Angadipuram in Malappuram.
> Both had come to Sabarimala on December 24 after 11 women activists of a Chennaibased outfit were prevented from reaching the shrine and chased away by devotees