Dalit activist Bindu Ammini, the first woman to enter the hill temple in Sabarimala in 2018, was allegedly attacked by an unidentified man in north Kerala’s Kozhikode on Wednesday evening.
In a complaint to the police, Bindu Ammini said she was overpowered by a man on the beach who showered blows on her till she fell on the road.
Police said they have registered a case and are looking for the attacker after checking CCTV visuals of the area.
Ammini said this was not the first attack and blamed Hindu outfits for targeting her. She was admitted to hospital last month after a speeding autorickshaw hit her but police said later that it was an accident.
“I arrived on the beach to consult one of my lawyers. All of a sudden, a person came and blocked my two-wheeler, and started abusing me and showered blows on me. He ran away when some of the onlookers intervened. This was a planned attack,” she said.
She was provided with police security earlier but it was later withdrawn.
Bindu Ammini was one of first two women to enter the temple on January 2, 2019 after the Supreme Court allowed the entry of female devotees of menstruating age in the shrine. Within hours of their daring entry, the Sabarimala temple area turned into a virtual war zone, and the temple authorities closed the shrine to conduct a purification ritual. On the streets of many of Kerala’s biggest towns, mobs set buses ablaze and hurled bombs at the houses of prominent leaders. Over the next few weeks, police arrested nearly 10,000 people in order to stamp down on simmering tensions across the coastal state.
In all, the state witnessed five shutdowns and violence after majority of the devotees resisted the move to allow women in the temple. Later the Supreme Court intervened and referred the issue to a larger bench, which is yet to deliver its verdict.
