The temple had opened Friday evening for the two-month-long annual pilgrim season as a stand-off continued over the entry of menstrual age women into the shrine.
Business
Standard : Thousands of pilgrims offered prayers at Lord
Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala early Saturday, the first day of
Malayalam month of 'Vrischikom,' even as a 12-hour strike against the
preventive detention of a Hindu Aikya Vedi leader began.
Pilgrims,
including children, queued up in large numbers since the temple
opened at 3 am.
The
temple had opened Friday evening for the two-month-long annual
pilgrim season as a stand-off continued over the entry of menstrual
age women into the shrine. All regular pujas began this morning under
the supervision of the new Melshanti (chief priest) Vasudevan
Nampoothiri.
Amid
unprecedented security, Kerala State Transport Corporation buses were
bringing pilgrims from Nilackal to Pamba and no services had been
stopped, KSRTC sources said. Shops and hotels near the temple complex
were open.
However,
normal life was hit elsewhere in the state as the strike progressed;
buses and auto-rickshaws remained off roads in several areas.
KSRTC
Managing Director Tomin J Thachankary said the corporation was
running buses in Sabarimala
with police protection to help pilgrims reach the temple.
In
Balrampuram near Thiruvananthapuram, protesters attacked a KSRTC bus
and damaging its windows, he told PTI.
In
the state capital, passengers had a tough time in getting vehicles to
reach their respective destinations due to the hartal. Many patients
and their relatives were unable to reach the regional cancer centre
and Thiruvananthapuram medical college hospital.
The
Aikya Vedi state president, K P Sasikala, who was on a pilgrimage to
the Ayyappa shrine, was taken into "preventive custody"
near Marakkootam, close to Sabarimala, at 2.30 am after she allegedly
defied the orders, police said.
Police
had decided not to allow devotees enter the temple premises when it
was closed for the night.
Sasikala
was stopped by them late Friday night when she was on her way to the
shrine with the traditional "Irrumudikettu" (offerings to
Lord Ayyappa carried by devotees on their head) as the temple would
have been closed by the time she would have reached there.
She
was later taken to Ranni police station.
Sudheer,
leader of another outfit, was also taken into preventive custody.
Aikya
Vedi protesters, meanwhile, gathered outside the Ranni police station
and Erumeli and began "Nama Japa" protests Saturday
morning.
Condemning
the police action, BJP state president P S Sreedharan Pillai said the
state government's effort is to "destroy" the Sabarimala
pilgrimage... Read
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