In a bid to forestall further COVID-19 infections, the Kerala police on Monday turned back some foreign tourists from the Attukal Pongala festival area.
Thousands of women have assembled within a six-km square radius of the famed temple to participate in the festival. Many have been sleeping rough since Sunday to secure an open ground to offer the sacrament, a mix of rice and jaggery cooked on open hearths.
Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran told newspersons that the tourists were holidaying at Kovalam and the spectacle had attracted them. The government had instructed hoteliers to counsel foreigners against visiting congested places, given the global outbreak.
The government has sent back law enforcers, including women officers, who it had requisitioned from Pathanamthitta to help police the festival.
The virus had resurfaced in the district last week when a non-resident Keralite family arrived from Italy and established contact with their friends, neighbours and relatives.
Mr. Surendran said the government ran a certain amount of risk by allowing the festivities to go ahead. But, a decision to cancel the festival would have upended months of planning.
