Indian police fire tear gas at protesters after women enter temple

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:- Indian police fired tear gas, stun grenades and water cannon as protests and clashes erupted across the southern state of Kerala after two women entered a flashpoint temple for the first time since a landmark court ruling, local media reported.

Violent clashes were reported between scores of people in front of the state parliament in Thiruvananthapuram. Protests with sporadic violence were also reported in several other towns across the state, media said.

The high priest of one of India's holiest temples carried out a "purification ritual" on Wednesday after two women defied Hindu traditionalists to sneak inside for the first time since a landmark court ruling.

The Supreme Court in September overturned a decades-old ban on women of menstruating age -- deemed as those between 10 and 50 -- setting foot inside the gold-plated Sabarimala temple.

Until now Hindu traditionalists -- backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) --have prevented attempts by women to access the hilltop site in the southern state of Kerala, with some hardliners turning violent.

But in a surprise pre-dawn operation on Wednesday heralded by activists but opposed by conservative devotees, police enabled two women to penetrate the hilltop temple and then leave again undetected, officials confirmed.

Video images showed the women, Kanaka Durga and Bindu, who has only one name, wearing black tunics with their heads bowed as they rushed in.

"We did not enter the shrine by climbing the 18 holy steps but went through the staff gate," one of the women, who both remain under police guard, later told reporters.

Kerala's Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said: "It is a fact that the women entered the shrine. Police are bound to offer protection to anyone wanting to worship at the shrine."