Ten women from Andhra Pradesh of India were returned from Sabarimala on Saturday afternoon hours before the shrine in Kerala opens for the 41-day annual pilgrimage season.
The state government on Friday said that the shrine is "no place for activism" and the activists hoping to make a statement by taking up the pilgrimage will not be given police protection.
The state government is also non-committal about giving protection to women between the age of 10-50 years who were allowed to enter the shrine after the top court last year lifted the centuries-old ban on the entry of menstruating women.The Sabarimala shrine will open this evening at 5 pm two days after the Supreme Court referred the review petitions against its 2018 verdict to a seven-judge bench. Security has been heightened around the hill shrine and more than 10,000 cops will be deployed in four phases.
Source: NDTV
