Sabarimala temple women entry activist Bindhu Ammini’s mother has been hospitalised and admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of Pathanamthitta General Hospital.
76-year-old Ammini was rushed to the hospital last Thursday, and Bindhu Ammini alleges that this was after a group of BJP members threatened her mother that Bindhu Ammini will be attacked.
Ammini who had been running a small shop at Lakur in Pramadom gram panchayat of Pathanamthitta district was on Wednesday allegedly threatened by three local BJP members. Ammini, who was already ailing from health issues like hypertension, suffered a cardiac arrest by Thursday morning and was admitted to hospital.
Bindhu Ammini is one of the two women who entered Sabarimala temple following the Supreme Court verdict of September 2018 allowing women of menstruating age to visit the famous hill shrine of Kerala. Bindhu and her family have been constantly threatened and harassed ever since that.
According to Bindhu, the BJP workers allegedly told her mother that ‘your daughter will be torn apart and thrown under a vehicle’.
Speaking to TNM about the incident, Bindhu Ammini says that her mother was constantly threatened and mentally harassed by local BJP leaders. “Earlier also my mother used to get threats from local BJP members who would come to her shop. Though I persuaded her to file a police complaint, she used to refuse saying they are local people. But of late, she had been ailing from some health issues and was very weak. She couldn’t have taken the pressure of the threat,” Bindhu alleges.
“When we moved Supreme Court with the plea to allow protection to visit Sabarimala temple, advocate Indira Jaising had told the court about the death threats my mother had received concerning me,” she says.
Following the incident, though Bindhu contacted the BJP’s district president in Pathanamthitta, he said he was not aware about this and told her that he will probe the issue before reacting to it. “After that one phone call, he has not picked up my calls nor is he replying to my messages,” says Bindhu.
Bindhu, who is travelling to her hometown, also says that she will file a complaint with the police on the issue as soon as she reaches there. “I am not aware of who exactly these people are, but my mother knows their names. Once I reach there, I will file a complaint with the police.”
Recently, in November, Bindhu was attacked with pepper spray by a member of a Hindu right wing group in front of city police commissioner’s office in Kochi. She was accompanying activist Trupti Desai to go to Sabarimala, but they had to drop the plan since they did not get police protection.
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