There was high drama outside the Cochin International Airport on Friday morning as BJP activists and Sabarimala devotees sought to prevent gender equality activist Trupti Desai from leaving to visit the hill shrine. The main pilgrimage season at Sabarimala commences on Friday.
Desai, leader of the Bhumata Brigade, who had announced she intended to visit Sabarimala recently, arrived in Cochin early on Friday. Devotees gathered outside the Cochin Airport terminal, chanting Ayyappa mantras and declaring they would prevent Desai from leaving the premises at any cost.
However, Desai told Manorama News she would not return without darshan at Sabarimala. "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.
"It is the responsibility of the state government and the police to provide protection and take us to the temple as the Supreme Court has allowed women of all ages to offer prayers at the shrine," Desai said.
Desai, who spearheaded the campaign to allow entry of women to various religious places, including Shani Shingnapur temple, the Haji Ali Dargah, the Mahalakshmi Temple and the Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple, announced the decision to visit Sabarimala after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on the entry of women of child-bearing age to the hill shrine on September 28.
Desai, along with six other women, arrived in the domestic terminal of Cochin Airport at 4.40am. However, the taxi drivers refused to give her a ride and she has been staying inside the terminal since. Police officials have reached the spot and held talks with the Sabarimala devotees and Desai.
Meanwhile, Section 144 has been imposed in places such as Elavunkal, Nilakkal, Pamba, Sannidhanam, and from Erumely to Kanamala ahead of the start of the Sabarimala pilgrimage.
Desai had earlier announced that she would visit the temple on Saturday after it opened on Friday evening for the two-month-long Mandala Makaravillakku pilgrimage season.
Desai, in an email to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, had sought security as she apprehended an attack on her life during her visit to Sabarimala. She had also sent a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure security for her trip to the hill shrine.
Rahul Easwar, president of the Ayyappa Dharma Sena, which had been among the organisations protesting against the entry of women of all ages into the shrine, earlier said that Ayyappa devotees would resist through 'Gandhian means' any attempt by Desai and her group to trek the holy shrine and offer prayers.
“We will lie down on the floor. We will protest and at all costs prevent them from offering prayers at the shrine,” he said in Thiruvananthapuram.
Sabarimala had witnessed a string of protests from the main opposition Congress, the BJP, RSS and rightwing outfits against the Vijayan government's decision to implement the Supreme Court verdict, lifting the ban on the entry of women in the 10-50 age group.
The Sabarimala shrine had been opened for four days in October and two days this month for the monthly pujas when the protests were held.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked a lawyer, who on Wednesday sought a stay on the Supreme Court's Sabarimala verdict, to wait till January 22 next year when the Constitution bench will hear review petitions.
