An out of the blue general strike called by the Hindu Aikya Vedi to protest the arrest of its leader Sasikala at Sabarimala caught the public unaware on Saturday.
Isolated incidents of violence marked the first few hours of the dawn-to-dusk hartal that was supported at the last minute by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Unknown persons damaged a KSRTC bus in Thiruvananthapuram, prompting the public utility to call of long-haul operations across the State temporarily.
Passengers, patients suffer
The impromptu decision announced at around 4 a.m. caused hundreds of commuters to be stranded across the State. In Thiruvananthapuram, several patients and their relatives bound for the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) here found themselves stuck without transport. The stoppage of public transport service also caught pilgrims headed for Sabarimala by surprise.
KSRTC managing director Tomin Thachankery told journalists that the Corporation could ill afford further loss. He said the KSRTC had sustained estimated damage of ₹1.25 crores during a Sabarimala issue related general strike in October.
The hartal appeared to have evoked a partial response in the State. In some pockets, it was near total. Autorickshaws and taxis remained off the road. A large number of shops and restaurants shuttered down for the day. Private cars and two-wheelers plied as usual.
Protests in front of district police headquarters
A tense situation prevailed in Kerala with the BJP and Hindu Aikya Vedi protesters holding almost simultaneous marches to various district police headquarters to protest Ms. Sasikala’s arrest.
In Thiruvananthapuram, police blocked a BJP protest march near the Police Headquarters. Scores of activists were staging a sit-in protest in front of the Ranni police station where Ms Sasikala is detained.
BJP State president P. Sreedharan Pillai termed Ms Sasikala’s arrest on the forest path to Sabarimala as unjustified. He demanded that Central forces take over the security in Sabarimala as the actions of the Kerala police appeared to be prejudicial to pilgrims. Mr Pillai warned that the BJP in other States would take up the Sabarimala agitation. “We will not restrict our agitation to Kerala alone,” he said.
Congress opposes hartal
Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly, Ramesh Chennithala, called the hartal a trespass against the fundamental rights of the people. He said the BJP and the RSS had held the people hostage by declaring a hartal when Kerala was in deep slumber.
‘Sasikala was detained for trying to go to the temple after it was closed’
The police justified Ms Sasikala’s arrest. A senior officer said the police had detained her when she attempted to move to the highly sensitive sanctum locality after the temple had closed after the day’s puja. The said the district magistrate had imposed prohibitory orders in the high-security zone and she attempted to violate the law.
CPI State secretary Kanam Rajendran said an extreme situation prevailed in Sabarimala. The Centre had warned the State that the pilgrim centre was vulnerable to terrorist attack. Hence, the police required to be extremely cautious at the sensitive pilgrim locality. They arrested Ms Sasikala because she had attempted to turn the sanctum into a protest zone.
