Activist Trupti Desai detained ahead of PM Modi’s Shirdi visit

Shirdi, Maharashtra: Activist Trupti Desai, a Pune-based activist was detained by Puine police Friday morning ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Shirdi. Desai, who is the chief of Bhumata Brigade, had written a letter to the Superintendent of Police, Ahmednagar, on Thursday seeking permission to meet Modi to discuss the Sabarimala issue, as per the news agency ANI. She had threatened to intercept PM Modi’s convoy if denied permission to meet him.

“The police was already here this morning as we were about to leave for Shirdi. It is wrong. It is our Constitutional right to protest. We are being stopped at home only. It is an attempt to suppress our voice,”

Desai who had welcomed the Supreme Court’s verdict allowing women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala shrine, said she will visit the Lord Ayyappa shrine this season. She had sought police protection after she received death threats and rape threats after the decision. “I have been getting threats to my life. They haven’t stopped. I fear from my life and decided to seek police protection,” she said earlier.

Modi will be in Shirdi in Maharashtra’s Shirdi on Friday. He will unveil a plaque to mark the laying of the foundation stone for various development projects in the Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust. He will also release a silver coin to commemorate the hundredth year of Shri Saibaba Samadhi. Modi will also hand over the keys to mark ‘Grihapravesh’ of the Prime Minister Awas Yojana- Grameen (PMAY-G) beneficiaries in Maharashtra.
Sabarimala standoff continued to simmer on a third day even as the hilltop shrine in Kerala remain n the boil.

Sabarimala standoff continued to simmer on a third day even as the hilltop shrine in Kerala remain n the boil. The portals of the temple are open for everyone, including menstruating women in the age group of 10-50. While groups of devotees continued to block roads leading to the Kerala shrine at Nilakkal (Nilackal) and Pamba, two women journalists started five km trek towards the shrine, escorted by about 100 policemen, protestors blocked their way and stopped them from reaching the temple of Lord Ayyappa.

Supreme Court in a verdict on September 28 allowed women of all ages to enter the inner sanctum of the temple.