Kerala High Court building in Ernakulam. , Photo Credit: H. Vibhu
A division bench of the Kerala High Court on Monday strongly condemned the conduct of a Devaswom guard posted in front of the sanctum sanctorum of the Sabarimala temple, who allegedly violently pushed and shoved pilgrims on Makaravilakku day.
Justice Anil K. A division bench of Justice Narendran and Justice PG Ajithkumar also ordered that action be taken as per law against the Devaswom guard, identified as Arunkumar S, Devaswom watchman, Mankaud Devaswom posted on special duty.
The court passed the order on a report filed by the Special Commissioner of Sabarimala on the misbehavior of the guards towards the devotees on the day of Makaravilakku after ‘Deeparadhana’. It has been reported in the report that the guard was violently pushing the devotees who were having darshan.
When the report was taken up for hearing, the court asked who gave permission to the guard to behave like this. The court orally noted that after a long wait in the queue, the pilgrims reached before the sanctum sanctorum for darshan. How can a guard harass the pilgrims. The Special Police Officer of Sannidhanam and the Sopanam Special Officer of Devaswom should also have stopped such misbehavior by the Devaswom guards towards the pilgrims.
The court also noted that the conduct of the guards was in gross violation of the High Court’s directions to regulate the movement of pilgrims, causing minimum inconvenience to the pilgrims.
The bench, which went through the video on the incident, said that the body language and facial expression of the Devaswom guards while pushing the pilgrims in front of the Sreekovil of Sabarimala Sannidhanam should be excommunicated in the strongest terms.
According to a report of the Chief Vigilance and Security Officer, after the ‘Deeparadhana’ from the flyover to the temple, there was crowding due to crowd pressure and instructions were given to speed up the flow of the crowd and in this sequence, the guards were to come in the first queue. Advised the devotees. The guard was relieved of duty at Sabarimala and sent back to his home station on January 15.
The bench also directed the secretary of TDB to file an affidavit by January 23 explaining the action taken against Arunkumar for misbehaving with the devotees.