KANNIYAKUMARI: Demanding the presence of elephants for Navaratri festival at the Bhagavathy Amman temple in Kanniyakumari, devotees and villagers staged protest near the temple on Thursday. After officials assured to fulfil their demands, they gave up the protest temporarily.
Sources said that the Navaratri festival started on October 3 and would conclude on October 12. An elephant was used to take holy water from the Kasivisvanathar temple at Vivekananthapuram for performing abishekam on Bhagavathy Amman.
Sources said that as an elephant was not brought till Wednesday, devotees staged protest from 10 pm to 12 pm on Wednesday night near the temple. Nagercoil MLA MR Gandhi also met the protesters, and the police held talks with them. HR & CE officials spoke over the phone to protestors and assured action.
A protestor said that as measures were being taken to bring the elephant, protests were stopped. A team was also sent to Sankarankovil for looking for an elephant and forest department officials visited Kanniyakumari on Thursday in this regard, sources added.
Forest department officials said that based on an application given to the chief wildlife warden in Chennai for transporting an elephant to the temple, the application was forwarded to the district forest office. Accordingly, forest department officials visited the temple on Thursday for verifying the site and check other criterion.
It was up to the chief wild life warden to grant permission, said HR & CE officials who added that the process for bringing an elephant to the temple function was ongoing.