New Delhi, December 13: In a major security breach, two men, both carrying canisters emitting a yellow smoke, jumped from the visitors’ gallery and ran into the Lok Sabha chamber on Wednesday while the House was transacting the Zero Hour.
The breach in the security came on the 22nd anniversary of the 2001 Parliament attack.
Incredible footage from the CCTV showed that one man, wearing a dark blue shirt, leaping across desks to evade capture, while the second was in the visitors’ gallery spraying smoke. Both were overpowered by MPs and security staff.
After the Lok Sabha resumed, Speaker Om Birla made a brief statement on the security breach.
“We are investigating the matter and have asked Delhi Police to join the inquiry,” he told understandably agitated MPs.
Both have been caught and the materials with them have also been seized. The two people (they have been identified as Sagar Sharma and D Manoranjan) outside Parliament have also been arrested.
The Lower House was later adjourned till 11 AM Thursday.
Earlier, shocking visuals showed a Lok Sabha official reading to the House seconds before the chaos. Suddenly, shouts of “catch him, catch him” could be heard as one of the intruders, Sagar Sharma, was shown trying to reach the Speaker’s Chair. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Anupriya Patel were present at the time.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah were not in Parliament as they were in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the BJP’s new Chief Minister, Vishnu Deo Sai.
A visitor’s pass was recovered after the two Lok Sabha intruders were caught. The pass indicates they were issued by the office of Pratap Simha, the BJP MP from Mysuru. Any visitor must clear multiple levels of security before being allowed inside the Parliament.
