Kerala Tense As Women Head To Sabarimala Amid Protests, Heavy Security | Read

Hundreds of policemen milled around Kerala's Sabarimala shrine today as it opened to devotees for the first time since a Supreme Court order overturned a centuries-old ban on women of menstruating age -between 10 and 50. On Tuesday, devotees screened buses and tried to prevent girls and women from proceeding to the hilltop shrine dedicated to the deity Ayyappa. Women were pushed, manhandled and violently turned away from the base camp at Nilakkal, around 20 km from the temple. Seven protesters were arrested and a large number of policemen were called in amid reports of college students and women journalists being stopped.