Shops down shutters in Kanyakumari to protest SC verdict on

Several shops in Kanyakumari, a town bordering Kerala, downed shutters Wednesday in protest against the Supreme courtorder allowing women of menstrual age to enter Sabarimala temple in that state, police said.

Local traders had given the call for shut down, they said.

The famous Sabarimala temple, which opened for the monthly pooja on October 17 after the Apex court verdict, had witnessed a stand-off over the issue with angry devotees preventing at least a dozen women in the "barred" age group from entering the shrine.

On September 28, a five-judge Constitution bench of the top court, headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, had lifted the centuries-old ban on the entry of women of all age groups into the hill shrine.