‘Parliament attackers carried smoke canisters in their socks’: Eyewitness recounts the scare

Exactly 22 years after terrorists attacked Indian Parliament on December 13, and days after a Sikh separatist leader threatened in a video message to shake the foundations of India’s ‘temple of democracy’, Parliament survived a massive security scare on Wednesday afternoon.

At about 1 pm on Wednesday, when the Zero Hour was in progress in the Lok Sabha, two young men from the visitors’ gallery suddenly leaped onto the Lok Sabha floor and clambered across the desks where the lawmakers sat.

An eye-witness told THE WEEK that the duo took out canisters from their socks, released the cap of the canisters, letting out yellow plumes of smoke, shouting ‘tanashahi nahi chalegi’ (dictatorship won’t be allowed).

While some stunned MPs ran in panic, the duo was soon overpowered by some MPs including Mallok Nagar (BSP MP from Bijnor) and the security staff.

The duo had been issued visitor passes that were signed by BJP MP from Mysuru, Pratap Simha. One of the nabbed has been identified as Sagar Sharma from Mysuru.

Meanwhile, just outside the Parliament complex, two persons—a man identified as Amol Shinde, and a woman, Neelam—were detained by the security for spraying coloured smoke.

Top police officials including the Delhi Police commissioner, intelligence officials and others rushed to Parliament to take stock of the situation and begin investigations.

The security breach—which could have assumed very serious dimensions—is extremely shocking in view of the fact that Tuesday is the 22nd anniversary of the December 13 Parliament attack by Pakistan-supported Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists that killed nine people.

Just a few days ago, Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, US-based Sikh separatist and proponent of Khalistan, had released a video in which he threatened to “shake the very foundation of Parliament” on December 13. The video also had a picture of the 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Interestingly, on Tuesday, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP had raised the issue of Pannu’s threat during Zero Hour. Pointing out that Khalistani terrorists are increasingly seen emboldened on foreign soil and are threatening the country, Chaturvedi had demanded that a firm message should go through Parliament that India will not tolerate such activities.