More than a thousand women formed a human chain in Mumbai on Tuesday to express solidarity with the “women’s wall” formed in Kerala as part of an initiative to uphold gender equality, PTI reported. Activists and women from different organisations formed a nearly kilometre-long chain from Dadar Chowpatty to Shivaji Park.

Lakhs of women in Kerala on Tuesday had built a 620 km-long “women’s wall” from Kasargod in the north to Thiruvananthapuram in the south to send out a message of gender equality.

Sonya Gill, a member of the committee that organised the Mumbai chain, said participants included women from the city, Navi Mumbai, and the neighbouring district of Thane. “We gathered to express solidarity for gender equality and what our sisters were doing in Kerala,” Gill said. “We are not following our old values and traditions where women used to be given due respect in all fields.”

The city’s Keraleeya Samajams arranged buses for the protest, The Times Of India reported. “We expected around 500 people to arrive, but the fact that three times that number showed up is a sign that the issue of women’s equality resonates in Mumbai too,” said All India Democratic Women’s Association member Sugandhi Francis.

A group of women in New Delhi on Tuesday also demonstrated outside the Kerala House near Jantar Mantar, demanding gender equality and justice for all, the Hindustan Times reported.

The “women’s wall” in Kerala came in the backdrop of massive protests in the state against a Supreme Court verdict that scrapped the traditional restriction on women of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple. After massive protests over the last two months, two women in their 40s entered the Ayyappa temple on Wednesday to offer prayers. The temple closed for an hour following that, to carry out “purification” rituals.