Activist Rahul Easwar, President of the Ayyappa Dharma Sena, has been granted bail by a local court in Kerala as per reports. He was arrested on the 17th of October in a crackdown on devotees protesting the entry of women in the age range of 10-50 years after the Supreme Court lifted the ban.
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Rahul Easwar is the grandson of the former high priest of the Sabarimala Shrine. Earlier, he was denied bail by a Magistrate’s Court in Kerala for staging protests and chanting slogans in Pathanamthitta.
The Pamba Police had charged him under various sections of the India Penal Code including sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), read with 149 (member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed to prosecuting of common object of the assembly), and 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public serving from discharge of duty).
Wife of Rahul Easwar, Deepa Easwar, had claimed on a Facebook live broadcast from her husband’s account that he was arrested in secret, put on a tractor and carried off under a tarpaulin. She said, “They arrested him from Sannidhanam. We are extremely sad because of the way they arrested him.
They arrested him in a very secretive way. They put him in a tractor underneath a tarpaulin. They had no reason to arrest him. He had not created any violence.” She added, “Rahul has not eaten for two days. He is on an indefinite hunger strike for Sabarimala. He would have done this fast if he was at Sabarimala also, now that they have moved him to jail he is going to continue it.”