THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India – Clashes broke out in southern India for asecond day Thursday as Hindu hardliners went on the rampage, seeking toenforce a general shutdown in protest at two women entering one of thecountry’s holiest temples.
A day after violence among rival groups and with police left one man deadand 15 people injured, authorities said that 266 protestors had beenarrested across the state of Kerala.
Anger erupted among Hindu traditionalists on Wednesday after news that thetwo women in their 40s, escorted by police and dressed in black,wrong-footed devotees to sneak into the Sabarimala temple via a sideentrance before dawn to pray.
This was the first time that any woman of menstruating age — deemed asthose aged between 10 and 50 — had set foot in the gold-plated temple,located on a hilltop in a tiger reserve, since India’s Supreme Courtoverturned a ban in September.
Thousands of Hindu devotees, many of them female, had previously succeededin preventing women from accessing the site in the weeks following thelandmark ruling, with some hardliners throwing stones at police andassaulting female journalists.
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On Tuesday, tens of thousands of women, in a local government-backedinitiative, had braved harassment to form a huge human chain called the”Women’s Wall” across Kerala to back the demand for access to the temple.
Kerala police told AFP that the man who died on Wednesday was part of ademonstration organised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP). – APP / AFP
