2 visitors breach Lok Sabha security, jump into chamber on Parliament attack anniversary; police suspect involvement of six persons

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, December 13

In an unprecedented breach of security on the 22nd anniversary of Parliament House attack, a youth from the visitors’ gallery jumped into the House chamber and started climbing up desks and raising slogans and the other dangled from the visitors' gallery and sprayed some yellow-coloured fumes.

Soon enough, the second youth also jumped into the House chamber.

Police suspect involvement of six people in Parliament security breach, official sources said, adding that while four have been arrested, search is on for 2 others.

All six suspects stayed in house in Gurugram and knew each other, police sources said. 

“There were two youths who were seated in the Lok Sabha visitors' gallery and jumped into the house chamber from there. Further details are awaited,” a parliamentary security official told The Tribune.

Lok Sabha MPs said the youth sprayed foul-smelling gas into the Lok Sabha and it wasn’t clear how they carried canisters inside when there was such tight security.

Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said one person came into the house and jumped around and the second person who was dangling from the public gallery of Lok Sabha, sprayed some kind of "gas" which caused irritation to the eyes.

TMC leaders Sudip Bandopadhyay and Kakoli Ghosh expressed shock saying the youth raised slogans.

“This is a second attack on Parliament. These were two youths aged 20 to 30. They had canisters in hands and sprayed fumes which could have been poisonous,” Congress leader Karti Chidambaram said.

Meanwhile, Police are learnt to have identified both the persons as Manoranjan and Sagar Sharma.

Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora and other senior officers visited the Parliament House complex to take stock of the situation. 

The two youths have been detained and interrogation is on, security officials said even as the breach raised serious questions about security lapses in the new Parliament.

MP Danish Ali said prime facie it appears one visitor was a guest of Mysore MP of BJP Pratap Simha.

“We hear one person’s name is Sagar,” Ali said. MPs said both visitors jumped into the chamber and were heard shouting “Tanashahi nahi chalegi.”

Importantly, no MP was injured. In fact, some MPs initially grabbed the intruders.

The breach happened in Lok Sabha when Zero Hour was under way.

PM Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda were not in Parliament today.

They are away to attend swearing-in ceremonies of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh chief ministers. — with PTI

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