Kerala CM justifies police action in Sabarimala

Kozhikode(Ker): Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Monday justified police action in Sabarimala, saying those who tried to create trouble were arrested on Sunday night even as he accused the Sangh Parivar of implementing its agenda.

"They were not Ayyappa devotees. RSS workers were camping at Sannidhanam with a motive to create trouble. The government cannot let anyone create trouble at Sabarimala," the chief minister said at the state conference of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ). 68 persons were taken into custody from the Ayyappa temple complex in the early hours and brought to the Manniyar camp.. Asserting that his government was with the devotees, Vijayan said it was being targeted for trying to implement the Supreme Court order permitting entry of all women into the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala.

The chief minister said his government was not taking any steps to take women to Lord Ayyappa temple but made it clear that post the Supreme Court verdict, it has the constitutional responsibility to provide security to women devotees reaching the hill shrine to offer prayers. Vijayan urged the media not to fall prey to propaganda that the government was against devotees. The government has no other way out but to implement the Supreme Court verdict on the Sabarimala issue, he said.

He alleged the Sangh Parivar was trying to implement its "agenda" in Kerala. "As the successors of the renaissance movement, that agenda cannot be accepted," he said. The temple had opened Friday evening for the 64-day annual pilgrimage season as the stand-off continued over entry of menstrual age women into the shrine following a Supreme Court order on September 28.