Amid ongoing protests and heavy deployment of police personnel in and around, Kerala's Sabarimala temple opened on Friday for the 'Mandala Makkaravillakku' puja.
Amid ongoing protests and heavy deployment of police personnel in and around, Kerala's Sabarimala temple opened on Friday for the 'Mandala Makkaravillakku' puja.
Over 15,000 personnel, including women police personnel and 860 women civil police officers, would be deployed during the season when lakhs of devotees from different parts of the country are expected to throng the shrine.
The temple has opened for the third time after the Supreme Court order on September 28 allowing all women to enter the famous shrine.
Meanwhile, social activist Trupti Desai, who has vowed to offer prayers at the hill shrine, along with six other young women associates is stuck at Kochi airport as a large number of devotees staged a "nama japam" protest clapping hands and chanting 'Swamiye Ayyappa'.
Justifying the agitation being held at the domestic terminal of the airport, BJP state President P S Sreedharan Pillai said the devotees of Lord Ayyappa were expressing their anguish over the move of the activists to enter the temple.
"Desai is challenging the devotees of Lord Ayyappa. This should not be done. The government should send her back considering the mounting protest in the state against her visit," he told reporters here.
However, Desai said she would not go back without darshan at the Lord Ayyappa temple.
"We will not return to Maharashtra without darshan at the Sabarimala temple. We have faith in the government that it will provide security for us," she had said, citing the Supreme Court order allowing women of all ages to offer prayers at the shrine.
At Thursday's meeting, the Kerala government had maintained that it had no other option but to implement the September 28 Supreme Court order, following which the opposition had walked out in protest describing the meeting as a 'farce'.
(With agency inputs)
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