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Activist Trupti Desai seeks police security after death threats for hailing SC verdict on Sabarimala

Trupti Desai said she will soon reveal the date on which she and other members of the Bhumata Brigade would be travelling to Sabarimala, adding that she needed armed protection in Pune and also on her way to Kerala

Trupti Desai at her residence. (Express photo By Sandeep Daundkar)
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Activist Trupti Desai, who has said she has been receiving death and rape threats after she hailed the Supreme Court verdict on Sabarimala and declared her intention to visit the temple, has decided to seek police security.

“Since Friday, when I welcomed the Supreme Court verdict and announced my intention to visit Sabarimala, I have been getting threats to my life. The threats haven’t stopped. I fear for my security and have decided to seek police protection,” said Desai.

Desai, the chief of Bhumata Brigade, said she would seek police protection from city Police Commissioner K Venkatesham on Monday. The activist said she will soon reveal the date on which she and other members of the Bhumata Brigade would be travelling to Sabarimala, adding that she needed armed protection in Pune and also on her way to Kerala.

The Pune Malayali Federation has, meanwhile, asked her to wait till “sentiments cool down” before visiting the temple. “It is an age-old tradition at Sabarimala that women of menstruating age can’t enter the temple…Though the Supreme Court has allowed women to enter the temple, local devotees, which mainly include women, will not allow Desai to enter the temple. They are not happy with the verdict,” said Rajan Nair, president of the Pune Malayali Federation.

Nair said there were certain reasons why Desai should not visit Sabarimala. “Firstly, the sanctity of the temple should be maintained. Secondly, women from Ayyappa Seva Sangham are upset and would not allow her to enter the temple. Thirdly, the temple is located in a hilly area, in a jungle, there are safety issues,” he said.

PCMC corporator and a member of the Federation, Babu Nair, said, “It is a sentimental issue with devotees. They are upset…They are thinking of filing a review petition before the Supreme Court. Desai should wait till the issue is settled.”

Desai, who had successfully led the agitation for the entry of women into the inner sanctum of Shani Shingnapur temple in Mahararashtra in April 2016, said she had been getting nasty comments and death threats on her Facebook page since Friday.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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