Shani Shingnapur temple row: Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan comes out in support of women`s entry

Ahmednagar: A day after Maharashtra's Shani Shingnapur made the headlines over women's entry ban row, a Muslim group has come out in support of the women's entry into the temple.

Charging "male-dominated bodies" which run shrines with bias, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan said it supports demands by Hindu women to be allowed to enter the 'chabutra' or sanctum sanctorum of the Shani temple in Ahmednagar. 

"We salute the women activists for their democratic protest and assertion of their right to worship in the face of all odds placed by the patriarchal male temple administration," Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan said in a statement. 

Condemning the police action, Andolan co-founders Zakia Soman and Noorjehan Safia Niaz said they were shocked at the imposition of Section 144 by the district administration to bar the women from proceeding peacefully to the temple. 

Maharashtra's Shani Shingnapur temple made the headlines on Tuesday as hundreds of women activists who were on their way to the temple - to protest the entry ban inside the shrine's inner sanctum sanctorum - were stopped by the security officials at Supa village in the state.