Hindu hardliners go on the rampage to keep fertile women out of Indian temple
- Traditionalists have rejected a court order allowing ‘unclean’ females between the ages of 10 and 50 to enter Sabarimala temple in Kerala state
Clashes broke out in southern India for a second day on Thursday as Hindu hardliners went on the rampage, seeking to enforce a general shutdown after two women entered one of the religion’s holiest temples.
A day after violence between rival groups and with police left one man dead and 15 people injured, authorities said that 266 protesters had been arrested across the state of Kerala.
Anger erupted among Hindu traditionalists on Wednesday after news that the two women in their 40s, escorted by police and dressed in black, wrong-footed devotees to sneak into the Sabarimala temple via a side entrance before dawn to pray.
This was the first time that any woman of menstruating age – deemed as those 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 Court overturned a ban in September.
Thousands of Hindu devotees, many of them female, had previously succeeded in preventing women from entering the site in the weeks following the landmark ruling, with some hardliners throwing stones at police and assaulting female journalists.