Union Minister KJ Alphons today lashed out at the Kerala government for turning the Sabarimala Temple complex into a "war zone" and lack of facilities at the Lord Ayyappa shrine even as police detained 68 people from the complex in the early hours for holding protests. Protests are being held across Kerala against the detention of the 70 persons even as the BJP demanded a judicial probe into the police action.
"The state government has turned the temple complex into a war zone. The devotees are not militants, they are pilgrims. What was the need to declare Section 144 at Sabarimala," Mr Alphons asked.
The sanctum sanctorum of the Lord Ayyappa Temple opened today morning with very few devotees turning up early.
Sixty-eight persons had been taken into preventive custody from the temple complex and brought to the Manniyar camp early this morning.Their details are being verified and their arrests have not been recorded yet.
Yesterday, the Kerala unit of the BJP and Congress held protests outside the official residence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Thiruvananthapuram.
Meanwhile, the Travancore Devaswom Board, which manages the Sabarimala shrine, has approached the Supreme Court seeking more time to implement its September order that removed a ban on women of menstruating age entering the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.
