Parliament breach accused undergo second face-to-face questioning

NEW DELHI: The six accused arrested in connection with the December 13 security breach in Parliament were questioned face to face for a second time by Delhi Police sleuths, sources said on Tuesday.

Sagar Sharma, Manoranjan D, Neelam Azad, Amol Shinde, Lalit Jha, and Mahesh Kumawat are in police custody till January 5. They have been interrogated for their actual motive behind the security breach, the sources added.

According to a police source, Neelam and Manoranjan are being held at the office of the Special Cell's Counter Intelligence Unit at New Friends Colony. The other four are being held at different units of the Special Cell.

They are being interrogated by separate teams of the Special Cell.

On December 30 and 31, they were brought to the Counter Intelligence Unit's office for face-to-face questioning. The investigators wanted to corroborate the sequence of events and the role of each accused. The accused had undergone another round of face-to-face questioning on December 20.

In a major security breach on the anniversary of the 2001 Parliament terror attack on December 13, Sharma and Manoranjan jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the public gallery during Zero Hour, released yellow smoke from canisters and shouted slogans before being overpowered by the MPs.

Around the same time, Shinde and Neelam sprayed coloured smoke from canisters while shouting slogans outside the Parliament premises.

The accused, who were a part of the "Bhagat Singh Fan Club" Facebook page, have revealed during interrogations that their main objective was to send a message to the government over unemployment and issues such as the Manipur violence and farmers' agitations.

The interrogators suspect that the accused got funds and acted at the behest of a handler.

The sleuths have also conducted psycho-analysis and plan to take a polygraph test of the accused.

All six have been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.