12-year-old girl barred from proceeding to Sabarimala

A 12-year old girl was stopped by the police from Sabarimala Ayyappa temple darshan citing restrictions on the entry of women in the 10-50 age group to the temple as per beliefs.

The girl, hailing from Puducherry, came along with her father and relatives. Though the girl's age was given as ten in the virtual queue system for the temple darshan, police officials examined her identity card following suspicions and found that she was aged 12 as per the Aadahar card.

Sources at Pamba said that the girl or the family did not insist on her temple darshan and they seemed to be unaware of the age bar. The girl remained at Pamba along with some relatives, while others proceeded to the trekking path for the temple darshan.

Around 300 women in the 10-50 age group were learnt to have so far booked on the virtual queue for darshan, a majority of which are from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The police would be allowing them only up to Pamba, which is the base camp of the hill shrine.

Several women aged around 40 were stopped by the police at Pamba over the last few days.

Meanwhile, the police would be easing the restriction on private vehicles to the Pamba base camp. Private medium vehicles would be allowed up to Pamba to drop pilgrims. But parking would not be allowed at Pamba. Vehicles were allowed only up to Nilakkal base camp, about 15 kilometres ahead of Pamba, from last year as facilities at Pamba, were destroyed in the 2018 floods.