Parliament Security Breach: 8 Lok Sabha Staff Suspended
After the Parliament security breach yesterday, the Lok Sabha secretariat has taken action by suspending eight personnel for lapses which occurred. The incident on security breach happened on Wednesday, when two people, from the visitor’s gallery of the house intruded in to the session which was going on, by jumping into chambers and setting off two cannisters that blew yellow smoke. One of the intruders then dived over the tables to run towards the Speaker’s chair. While this happened inside the Parliament, outside, two others set off cannisters, bursting of red and yellow colours. As the smoke bombs set off, they shouted slogans which were against dictatorship – “tanashahi nahi chalegi.”
Following up on this, at least eight personnel of the Lok Sabha has come under suspension. Among the suspended personnel are, Rampal, Arvind, Vir Das, Ganesh, Anil, Pradeep, Vimitt and Narendra, reported the Ndtv.
The security officials at the Parliament said that the smoke cannisters were hidden in the shoes of the accused, reported the Indian Express. The intruders have been taken under custody and is charged under the anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and other sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC). They have been identified as Sagar Sharma, D Manoranjan, Amol Shinde and Neelam Azad. Another person identified is Lalit Jha, who reportedly took videos of both Amol Shinde and Neelam Azad while they burst the cannisters outside the Parliament. After taking the videos, they fled the scene along with their phones. The investigation has traced that, all the accused in the security breach stayed at a house at Gurgaon, belonging to Vicky Sharma, Ndtv reported.
All the accused knew each other. The police investigation has reported that four of the accused intruders belonged to different states and that, over the last 18 months, they have met many times, in order to plan the Parliament security breach. The two accused who were caught inside the Parliament are Sagar Sharma (25) from Lucknow and D Manoranjan (35) from Mysore. The other two, Neelam Singh (42) is from Hisar, Haryana and Amol Shinde (25) is from Latur, Maharashtra. Reportedly, Lalit Jha took them to Vicky Sharma at Gurgaon, reported the Indian Express. The accused connected with each other through a social media page called “Bhagat Singh Fan Club,” said Ndtv.
On Wednesday, when the incident occurred, some of the members of the Parliament took charge by surrounding and roughening the intruders, a video footage shows. The intruders who were inside the lower house of the Parliament is said to have got the visitors pass facilitated by Pratap Simha, who is an MP from Mysuru, reports the Indian Express.
Earlier, in the year 2001, India had witnessed a major security breach at the Parliament and this incident with smoke cannisters comes on the 22 nd anniversary of the 2001 terror attack. In 2001, a team of five militant terrorists with Kalashnikov rifles had blasted into the outer security rings of the Parliament complex which resulted in fatal causalities.
Yesterday, President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Home Minister Amit Shah, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh; leaders of Congress, Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, and others had paid tribute to the martyrs of the Parliament terror attack, reported the mint.
President Murmu, on this occasion, remembering the martyrs of the 2001 attack, touched upon reiterating the pledge to wipe out terrorism, and added that their sacrifice would not go in vain, reported the HT.
