Kerala police to charge-sheet actress Jayamala

The crime branch of the Kerala police will submit a charge sheet against Kannada actress Jayamala for violating a ban on women entering the hill shrine at Sabarimala, a source said.

The charge sheet will be filed in the judicial magistrate's court at Ranni in Pathanamthitta district before November 15, the source said.

The controversy over Jayamala’s visit to Sabarimala erupted after the actress claimed that she had touched the feet of the idol.

Women aged between 10 and 50 are banned from visiting the temple, since the presiding deity, Lord Ayyappa, is celibate, according to Hindu lore.

Jayamala claimed four years ago that she, as a 27-year-old, had visited the shrine in April 1987 and prayed for her late husband.

Though temple priest Kantaru Maheshwararu had rejected her claim as a “figment of her imagination”, the actress’s statement found support in an astrologer, Unnikrishna Panicker of Parappanangadi in Kerala’s Malappuram district.

The charge sheet being prepared by the police in Kottayam names Panicker as the first accused. His associate in Bangalore, Raghupathi, is the second accused, while Jayamala’s name figures third.

Jayamala had caused a controversy when she faxed her claim to the temple administration office during an astrological examination of the conduct of the temple affairs by Unnikrishnan.

The astrologer had claimed that the pujas and rituals at the shrine were not being performed with due sanctity and there were signs of the idol having been touched by a woman.

It was in this backdrop that Jayamala made the claim that she had visited the temple and wanted to do penance for that.

A crime branch probe had earlier concluded that Jayamala’s claim of having been pushed into the sanctum sanctorum by the crush of devotees appeared illogical and implausible.