Trupti Desai forced to go back

​Kochi: The Sabarimala temple opened at 5pm for the two-month-long pilgrim season amid tight security in the backdrop of the standoff over the entry of women in menstrual age. Meanwhile, women's rights activist Trupti Desai, who was holed up at the airport, will leave Kochi by an Air India flight at 9.25pm on Friday.

Trupti Desai, who wants to enter Kerala's Sabarimala temple in defiance of a decades-old custom on women of menstrual age, says she has been asked by the police to return from the Kochi airport due to hundreds of protesters blocking it since she landed 13 hours ago.

The protesters, who staunchly support the restrictions on women despite the Supreme Court ending the ban in a landmark order in September, say they won't allow Trupti Desai and her six colleagues to step out of the airport. Taxi drivers say they will not take the visitors anywhere.

"Police is saying the protesters can enter the airport anytime and attack us. They have requested us to return since protests may break out across the state... Entering the temple is our right but we have not come here to disrupt law and order," the Pune-based activist said at the airport.

Reports say groups of protesters have been visiting hotels in Pathanamthitta and asking them not to accommodate Trupti Desai or any women visitors in the "banned" age group. Trupti Desai had written to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the state police chief seeking protection to visit the shrine, where no woman has been allowed even after the Supreme Court ruling.