A thud made heads turn in the lok sabha on wednesday when two young men leaped from the visitors' gallery onto the floor of the house, where proceedings were underway. Some MPs were perplexed at first by the invasion, which interrupted proceedings just after 1 pm.

A few hours earlier, legislators headed by lok sabha Speaker om birla and rajya sabha Chairman jagdeep Dhankar queued up to pay tribute to the security officers who perished on this day in 2001 when terrorists poured bullets on parliament in an audacious attack. Surely, the timing of the strike on wednesday was significant?

The males, one of whom had a smoke canister hidden in his foot, shouted slogans that enraged security staff. Amid the chaos, bjp leader Rajendra Agrawal, who was in the Chair, made a fast statement that the house would be postponed till 2 p.m. Some MPs had made their way to the entrance by then; others had summoned for security; but a couple of those sat near the benches where the two intruders fell were quick on their feet and seized the two. Blows poured down on the two as they attempted but failed to flee.

The two were hauled out of the rooms by security guards, apparently injured from the blows.

One of the invaders landed near the Dadra and nagar Haveli shiv sena mp Kalben Delkar's seat.

Malook nagar of the BSP recounted the event, saying, "Our proceedings were going on when suddenly we heard a thud from the back and then I turned." Someone must have fallen from the lok sabha public gallery...or been shoved."

"We were looking towards the gallery when suddenly another guy jumped down," claimed nagar, who, along with congress mp Gurjeet Singh Aujla and RLP's Hanuman Beniwal and a few others, assaulted the two invaders. The moment the second person leaped, it was evident that something was awry. He didn't rush to the exit, but instead began jumping over the chairs."

Nagar and Beniwal halted the invader as he attempted to approach the Speaker's chair. "He removed his shoes, but we caught him." Four or five MPs arrived and began beating him up. We were watching to make sure he didn't pull out any weapons he might have on him. "Security personnel entered the room shortly after," nagar added.

He went on to explain that a lady, most likely a member of the ward and watch personnel, fainted when one of the invaders landed on her. "We saw she was crying and was confused about the situation..."

"When we caught the first guy, he took something out like a canister and there was smoke everywhere," Aujla recounted, his right palm discolored yellow from the gas in the canister. I'm not sure what he was holding, but it was just blowing smoke everywhere."

Recounting the incident outside the house, Beniwal, who represents Nagaur in Rajasthan, claimed a slew of union ministers, including Defense minister Rajnath Singh, were there when the uproar started. He stated that the MPs did not hesitate for a second. "We thought they should know that they cannot get away."

"We stopped them and restrained them, and when the security personnel were picking one of them up, he removed his shoes, and he took out the canister."

Outside, MPs were stunned by the security failure. "Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist assault. They chose today, of all days, to enter parliament and demonstrate that we are not safe," Beniwal added.

According to ram Shiromani Verma of the BSP, who was also there at the time of the event, panic spread as soon as the gas was discharged. "This was a major incident...they were too daring to pull something like this in the Lok Sabha." We request that the government look at this." Danish Ali, a BSP mp who was ousted this week, and arvind sawant of the shiva Sena (UBT) agreed with him.

"Luckily no mp was injured this time, but we need answers about this breach," he added.




Find out more: