Outside the police guard room at Pampa in Kerala, the base point of an uphill pilgrimage that leads to the revered Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa, a young girl stood in tears. When a policewoman asked if her name was Senthamizhselvi, she nodded fearfully.

Senthamizhselvi had come to Sabarimala from the southern union territory of Puducherry with her father and relatives. In a video shot by a local reporter, the father, dressed in a dhoti and his body smeared with holy ash, can be seen waving an identity document in the air, asking loudly why the Kerala police were stopping his daughter from entering the temple.