Two women enter flashpoint India temple

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM AFP Jan2, 2019   - Two women on Wednesday entered one of Hinduism’s holiest shrines in south India becoming the first to go into Sabarimala temple since the Supreme Court ordered the end of a longstanding ban on women aged between 10 and 50, a state minister said.   

The temple in Kerala state has been at the centre of a prolonged showdown between Hindu devotees supporting the ban and women activists who have been forced back several times from Sabarimala.   

The women entered the hilltop temple just before dawn with police security.   

 “We did not enter the shrine by climbing the 18 holy steps but went through the staff gate,” one of the women told local media.   

Kerala state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said: “It is a fact that the women entered the shrine. Police are bound to offer protection to anyone wanting to worship at the shrine.” The women’s entry into the temple is certain to provoke a new gender storm.   

A spokesman for the temple’s management, Sasikumar Varma, said that if priests confirmed women had entered Sabarimala “necessary purification rituals will be done.” Media reports said the head priest had ordered the temple closed for “purification”.