Actor Kollam Thulasi says women visiting Sabarimala temple ‘should be ripped in half’

NEW DELHI: Actor Kollam Thulasi made a bizarre statement on Friday saying women coming to Sabarimala temple should be ripped in half. Kollam Kanjaveli Kuttilazhikathu Thulasidharan Nair is an actor in Malayalam cinema and was speaking in Kerala. He further said, “one half should be sent to Delhi and the other half should be thrown to Chief Minister's office in Thiruvananthapuram." Earlier, a five-judge constitution bench headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, had in its 4:1 verdict, said that banning the entry of women into the shrine is gender discrimination and that the practice violates rights of Hindu women. Until now, girls below 10 years and women over 50 years were allowed to visit the shrine, located in the Western Ghats and about 130 km from Thiruvananthapuram. The temple is hugely popular in southern India. Meanwhile, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has criticised those agitating against his government's move to implement the Supreme Court verdict on the entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple, saying "deliberate" efforts were being made to destroy the state's unity and secular fabric. "The people of Kerala faced the recent unprecedented floods unitedly but deliberate efforts are now being made to destroy that unity, to destroy the secular fabric," Vijayan as saying. Sabarimala Sree Dharma Sastha Temple, dedicated to Lord Ayyappa, is the most famous and prominent among all the Sastha temples in Kerala. It is situated on a hilltop (about 3000 feet above sea level) named Sabarimala in Kerala's Pathanamthitta district.