Women evade protesters, head for Sabarimala

KUMILY

/

KOCHI

: After almost three weeks of uneasy calm, there was renewed tension over the Sabarimala issue as protesters tried to block a group of women from Tamil Nadu aged between 10 and 50 heading for the hill-top shrine at various points close to the Kerala border late on Saturday night.

At the time of going to print, the women going to Sabarimala had crossed Kattapana en route to Erumeli and Pamba. The Supreme Court, in its historic September 28 judgment, had declared that women of any age could worship at the shrine but the verdict has so far remained unimplemented owing to organised protests by right wing groups.

From around 10pm on Saturday, high tension prevailed at Kumily and Cumbummettu as BJP workers gathered in strength anticipating the arrival of the women.

Protesters gathered at Paarakadavu, Ealappara and Kuttikanam after reports that the women, travelling in two vehicles with police protection, had crossed Cumbumettu.

The women are part of Manithi, an organization formed as a fallout of the murder of a law student at Perumbavoor, Ernakulam.

There were at least 100 men at Kumily and a similar number at Kuttikanam. Platoons of Kerala police were also deployed in both locations, though the protesters seemed to outnumber them by far. At all these places, the protesters were loudly and defiantly chanting ‘Swami Sharanam’. Following Saturday night’s developments, police strengthened security in various parts of the state.

The tension was palpable at Sabarimala-Sannidhanam too -- minutes before the nada closed for the day after Harivarasanam, a huge crowd gathered near Malikapuram temple and were aggressively ‘saranam Ayyappa’.

Tamil Nadu special branch is learnt to have alerted their Kerala counterparts that another group of women – numbering 12 -- was likely to arrive by train on Sunday.