Don’t want bloodshed, says woman journalist as she calls off trek
Women have not entered the Sabarimala temple as the situation continued to be tense amid a showdown between protesters and police a day after the hill shrine opened to devotees for the first time after Supreme Court allowed women of all ages to enter the hill shrine.
However, a woman journalist of a foreign media outlet began trekking to the hill amid protests along with a foreign colleague, with police forming a security ring around them.
Suhasini Raj, a Delhi-based New York Times journalist, faced angry devotees who lay on her path at the halfway point at Marakootum and asked her to go over their bodies. As police appeared helpless, she retreated.
“I thought things will be smooth after the verdict. I was besieged by a violent mob. They heckled me badly and tried to manhandle me. I wanted to avoid bloodshed,” Suhasini told reporters before leaving for Kochi.
She was among thousands of male devotees making the trek uphill to the temple as protesters, led by the Sabarimala Samrakshna Samiti, called for a 24-hour state-wide shutdown.
Believers of the centuries-old tradition said they would stage a sit-in defying section 144 of Code of Criminal Procedure – which prohibits assembly of more than four people – and block entry of women of reproductive age from visiting the 800-year-old shrine in south Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district since its presiding deity, Lord Ayyappa, is considered to be celibate.
Thousands of policemen and policewomen were deployed along the route to ensure safe passage of women.
However, protesters stoned buses at several places on the way to the hilltop temple. The state run transport buses have suspended service on the route.
Pilgrims and protesters have complained of police excesses, complaining that the cops had damaged their vehicles.
BJP is supporting the bandh but the Congress is yet to take a decision on it.
Congress leaders are set to approach the high command in Delhi to seek approval as it fears that the right wing outfits, including BJP and RSS, may hijack the emotional issue, denting its vote bank, especially the upper caste Hindus.
A body of the powerful Nair community, Nair Service Society is at the forefront of the agitation against the SC verdict that allowed women of all ages in the hilltop temple.
On Wednesday, the police had to jostle with protesters to take a 45-year-old devotee from Andhra Pradesh, identified as Madhavi, to safety after she was intercepted by a group of men. She was forced to return to Pamba. A young woman from Kerala’s Alappuzha,identified as Liby, was stopped at the Pathanamthitta bus terminal.
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