PAMBA: The Sabarimala foothills on Sunday witnessed high drama as hundreds of devotees blocked paths and chased away a group of 11 women of menstruating age being escorted to the hill shrine by the police.
Though the police team tried to arrest and remove a few of the devotees who blocked the traditional forest path and take the women members of Chennai-based outfit ‘Maniti’, hundreds of pilgrims rushed down to the valley to chase them away.
They could barely move 100 metres through the traditional path towards the temple. The women and the police had to virtually run from the scene to the safety of a nearby guardroom, abandoning the trekking plan, after being booed by protesters.
Defying prohibitory orders, hundreds of devotees thronged the forest path blocking the way of the women, who reached in the early hours from Chennai. Police tried to remove the protesters by force as they were not ready to budge despite their repeated announcements to disperse and end the namajapa (chanting sacred hymns) protest. Repeated talks by the police with the women who were sitting on the road for over six hours, also failed as they insisted on climbing the hill and have darshan at the shrine.
As the Pandalam royal family, attached to the Ayyappa temple, and the opposition BJP accused the government of taking the “activist women” with police protection, Devaswom Minister, Kadakampally Surendran said they would act according to directives of the high court-appointed monitoring panel. Kerala had witnessed massive protests by devotees opposing the apex court verdict on September 28 permitting women of all age groups into the shrine. (PTI)
