Chennai:
A hundred Dalits were arrested after they tried to enter a temple in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu on Monday morning.
The Dalits were being led by a CPM politician into a temple in Uthapuram village.
Anticipating trouble between the Dalits and upper caste village, the police had imposed Section 144 which bans any gathering of more than four people.
For decades, Dalit families were not allowed into the temple, which is managed by non-Dalits.
In 2008, a wall which separated a colony where Dalit families live from the rest of the village was demolished on the orders of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.