Administrators of Kerala’s Sabarimala temple is seeking time to implement a Supreme Court order lifting a ban on the entry of women to the temple given the widespread protests.
Yesterday, hundreds of men and women stopped gender equality activist Trupti Desai and six others accompanying her at the Kochi airport as they arrived to go to Sabarimala.
Desai and her team were later forced to return to Maharashtra by late evening as the Kerala police refused to take them to Sabarimala, 154kms away.
Their efforts to hire a taxi to Pamba - from where they intended to climb 5.5km to the hill temple - was unsuccessful as no taxi operator was willing to undertake the journey.
“The protesters were shouting abuses at us even inside the airport,” Desai told reporters before leaving. “I’m not bowing to their threats, but the police informed us of the difficult situation. We called hotels but nobody was willing to accommodate us,” she added.
Activists led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continued their protests throughout the day.
The airport authorities said the demonstrations had affected the normal functioning of the airport, the fourth largest in India in term of international flights.
“We will move a petition, if possible today or on Monday, seeking time to implement the order,” Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president A Padmakumar told reporters after a meeting.
“We will apprise the court of the destruction of infrastructure at Sabarimala and its base camps after the devastating floods,” Padmakumar said.
The TDB wants to wait until the apex court decides on a set of petitions seeking a review of its verdict.
“The stubbornness of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is creating problems,” claimed opposition Congress party leader Ramesh Chennithala.
The temple opened yesterday for two months.
The state, which is slowly recovering after devastating floods in August, has had to mobilise massive resources for ensuring security at Sabarimala this season.
Thousands of forces, including armed commandos, are guarding the temple and base camps at Nilakkal and Pampa and other sensitive areas.
Hundreds of right-wing Hindu activists are also camping in all these places to stop women from attempting to enter the temple.
Some 700 women aged between 10 and 50, have registered on the “virtual queue’ opened by the police to visit the temple this season. But police refused to divulge their details including the time slots allotted to them because of threats. Most of the applicants are from other states, particularly Andhra Pradesh.
Demonstrators protest against the arrival of Trupti Desai, a women’s rights activist, outside the Cochin International Airport at Kochi yesterday.
