Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said the government would allow no “criminals” to pitch camp, intimidate women pilgrims or foment trouble at Sabarimala again.

Mr. Vijayan said the temple should be an oasis of peace and not a noisy venue of unruly elements to display their bigotry against women who came to worship there.

At a press conference, Mr. Vijayan outlined his government's plans for the temple for the upcoming annual pilgrimage season that begins November 17, in the face of the ongoing ‘Save Sabarimala’ campaign.

Mr. Vijayan said the government planned to regulate the number of daily visitors to Sabarimala to a more manageable figure, along the lines of the Tirupathi model where authorities would require pilgrims to reserve their darshan time in advance. The measure would help them spread the number of daily visitors evenly across the pilgrimage season that concludes in January 2019, he said and added that the police would get ample time to check the background of suspicious visitors and filter out lawbreakers if need be.

BJP-RSS plot

The CM also said that there were mobile phone voice message intercepts that indicated that the BJP-RSS combine had hatched a dark plot to foment communal trouble in Kerala under cover of the ‘Save Sabarimala’ campaign.

“The RSS cadres, posing as Ayyappa devotees, had mobbed and attacked women journalists and hurled obscenities at them. They had forcibly turned back women devotees and raided their homes. The RSS bullied the media, attacked the police and targeted officers from other religions for their role in enforcing the law in Sabarimala The BJP president openly exhorted police officers to mutiny against the government,” said Mr. Vijayan.

The CM said such strong-arm tactics and clamorous protests would not deter the government from executing its constitutional obligation to protect the Supreme Court guaranteed right of women to worship at the temple. “Any woman can visit and worship at Sabarimala freely and safely,” he said.