Just minutes away from the last 18 steps to the Sabarimala shrine, hundreds of protesters stood in front of policemen, determined to stop two women from entering the temple. Around 300 policemen had escorted the women on a five-km walk to the hilltop shrine, which has opened for the first time since the Supreme Court ended a ban on women of menstruating age or between 10 and 50 entering the temple of Lord Ayyappa.
