Thiruvananthapuram: Several people were arrested after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) protesters opposed to a recent Supreme Court verdict on women pilgrims to Sabarimala temple targeted at an event Kerala chief minister Pinaryai Vijayan was attending on Sunday.
Police had to arrest and forcibly remove protesters from the venue of the meeting.
Some women chanted prayers in protest but the chief minister ignored them and continued with his speech.
The event was being held at Chengannur to inaugurate the ‘Care Home’ project involving the construction of 2,000 homes for those whose properties were damaged by floods in August.
On the chief minister’s way to the venue, members of the Yuva Morcha, the BJP’s youth wing, waved black flags at him, leading to arrests.
The protests are the culmination of discontent following the arrest of BJP state general secretary, K. Surendran.
Protesters are now targeting meetings of the chief minister and his ministerial colleagues, in addition to attempting to block their vehicles on the roads.
Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran said, “The BJP’s aim is to disrupt law and order in the state. The people are seeing through their strategy.”
The BJP is expected to sustain the protests at least until the end of the Sabarimala pilgrimage season, in mid-January 2019.
Despite the apex court’s ruling permitting girls and women of all ages to pray at the temple, protesters have blocked all women of menstruating age from entering the temple premises, arguing that it will defile the temple.
