Sabarimala violence: Rampaging protesters hurl crude bombs, stones; 1,369 arrested, 717 detained
Incidents of violence continued to rock Kerala, hours after a third woman, 47, went into Sabarimala temple to breach the ban on entry of women of menstruating age that the Supreme Court had set aside last year.
It was not clear how the woman, a Sri Lankan national identified as Sasikala, who lives in France, got into the temple with her husband. Media reported she has had her uterus removed, which would mean she cannot menstruate.
She entered the temple at about 10.55 pm on Thursday.
Police later released CCTV visuals of the woman and her husband Sarvanan inside the shrine. But it is not clear if she climbed the "pathinettampadi" (holy 18 steps) to reach the sanctum sanctorum.
Kerala had witnessed unprecedented mayhem on Thursday, a day after two women entered the hill temple. Protesters had blocked roads by placing burning tyres and granite blocks.
Some 1,369 people were arrested and 801 cases registered in connection with violent protests on Thursday, police said, adding 717 people were in preventive custody.
On Friday, fringe groups fought pitched battles with police and political rivals, leaving scores of people injured, including three BJP workers in a knife attack.
Early in the day, crude bombs were hurled at the house of Malabar Devaswom Board member, K Sasikumar, at Perambra in Kozhikode in the early hours of Friday, the police said. Four incidents in which crude bombs were used were reported in Kannur. Similar explosives were hurled at a mobile shop in Adoor in Pathanamthitta, they said. A local BJP office in Kannur was set on fire by miscreants, they added.
A number of houses of the BJP and the ruling CPI(M) activists were attacked and pelted with stones in Pathanamthitta, Kannur, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram.
Protest demonstrations by the BJP and Sabarimala Karma Samithi had turned violent at several places in Kozhikode, Kannur, Malappuram, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram. Police had used batons and water cannons to break up the protests.
(With inputs from PTI & Reuters)
Turned Away
- A transgender, Kayal, who arrived at Pamba around 6 am on Friday, was not allowed by the police to enter the temple
- Kayal had come in a sari and later changed to men’s clothing and tried to trek the hills with the ‘irrumudikettu’
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