After hours of delay, it has now been officially conrmed that a third woman in her 40s has entered the sanctum sanctorum of Sabarimala. Sri Lankan Tamil lady, 46-year-old Sasikala, entered the temple with her husband, son, and another man on the night of Thursday.
Top sources at the Kerala chief minister's office said that the woman had entered the temple. “This time, she went up the 18 steps,” a top source said. However, unlike in the case of Bindu and Kanakadurga, the government was not keen to openly confirm the entry of the Sri Lankan woman. The source in the Kerala CMO insisted that his name should be kept anonymous.
READ: Sabarimala: Did cops abort bid to escort 47-year-old Lankan woman to shrine?
Separately, media reports also confirmed the news through CCTV footages from the temple.
On Thursday night and Friday morning, there was confusion about the Sri Lankan woman's entry. The lady had, in fact, exploded before the media saying that the police had prevented her from entering the temple. “It were not the devotees, but the police who had stopped me from entering the temple,” she had said. She looked uncontrollably furious.
Sasikala also told reporters that she had produced documents to show that she had had her uterus removed. The CMO source said that Sasikala said so on the directions of the police. “She was a foreign woman and there was concern that she might be spotted by some Sangh Parivar men and put to serious harm. Her response was just a way of survival,” the source said.
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In hindsight, Sasikala's entry looks thoroughly planned. Till Marakoottam, she walked with the rest of the team. After that, she parted ways from the team. Later, it was only her husband and her son who returned after worshipping at the shrine. This gave the impression that Sasikala had been prevented from entering the shrine. This impression was further bolstered when Sasikala herself accused the police of blocking her from entering the temple.
The reports about the Sri Lankan woman's visit comes a day after two Kerala women in their 40s offered prayers at the Sabarimala temple on Wednesday.
Kanakadurga and Bindu—aged 44 and 42—visited the temple three months after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa.
As the news spread, protests erupted at several places, with right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing closure of shops and markets. A Sabarimala Karma Samiti worker named Chandran Unnithan, who was taking part in a protest rally, was killed in stone-pelting.
The Sabarimala Karma Samiti observed a hartal on Thursday during which widespread violence was reported, leaving several people, including cops,
injured. Media personnel were also attacked.
