The Maharashtra police on Thursday detained gender rights activist and ‘Bhumata Brigade’ leader Trupti Desai along with other members of her outfit at Ahmednagar while they were en route to the Sai Baba temple at Shirdi.
Ms. Desai had earlier criticised boards allegedly put up by the Sai Baba temple trust outside the temple premises, urging devotees to be dressed in a “civilised” manner as per “Indian culture”. Earlier, the activist had announced her intention to go to Shirdi and pull down the boards with the allegedly “contentious” messages on December 10.
On Tuesday, Ahmednagar district authorities had issued a notice to Ms. Desai, debarring her from entering Shirdi from December 8 midnight to December 11 midnight.
However, defying the notice, Ms. Desai along with 20 other members of her outfit, left Pune on Thursday morning to remove the hoardings by force.
The entourage was detained near Supa village on the Pune-Ahmednagar highway under Section 68 of the Bombay Police Act, said police authorities.
Meanwhile, the Sai Baba temple trust officials clarified that they had not imposed any dress code on devotees and that their message was just an appeal following complaints that some people had visited the shrine wearing allegedly objectionable clothes.
Ms. Desai had made news a few years ago with her highly-publicised, often strident temple-entry ‘crusades’ to demolish gender barriers at shrines across Maharashtra. This had prompted the temple trustees to opening the inner sanctum of the historic Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar to women in April 2016.
She had also mounted a combative campaign to seek entry for women in the core area of the Haji Ali Dargah, and had written more than once to the trustees of the Sabarimala temple in Kerala demanding entry to women of all ages into the famous hill shrine.