The Sabarimala temple opened at 5 pm today for the 41-day annual pilgrimage season, hours after 10 women from Andhra Pradesh were sent back from the hill shrine in Kerala this afternoon. The state government on Friday said the shrine is "no place for activism" and activists hoping to make a statement by going on the pilgrimage will not be given police protection. The Kerala government is also non-committal about giving protection to women between the age of 10 and 50 years, who were allowed to enter the shrine after the Supreme Court last year lifted a ban on the entry of menstruating women.
