Thiruvananthapuram, May 21: The Kerala State Human Rights Commission has asked the Travancore Devaswom Board to allow male employees at Lord Ayyappa temple to wear underwear.

More than 250 employees engaged in counting currency notes and coins offered by devotees will benefit from Justice N. Dhinakar’s order to the board that administers the temple.

For years now, the staff at the hill shrine of Sabarimala had to strip themselves of all clothing, except their dhotis, before entering the counting chamber.

The temple authorities enforced this practice after they found that money was being smuggled out, concealed in the undergarments.

“Those engaged in counting were silently suffering the insult because of the misdeeds of a few. We are made to wear only a mundu (dhoti) and perhaps a second one, a randaam mundu, but were often made to strip on the demand of security guards. This has been causing us mental agony,” said G. Baiju, general secretary of Travancore Devaswom Employees’ Front, which filed the petition before the commission.