A huge security breach happened at the Indian Parliament on Wednesday, when two intruders invaded the building during a session of the Lok Sabha, the nation’s lower house of legislature.
A debate was in progress when an individual jumped into the parliament from the visitors’ gallery, swiftly followed by another, according to India Today. According to reports, the infiltrators pulled out canisters and emitted a “yellow gas,” which has yet to be recognised, before being overpowered by parliamentarians.
The proceedings were suspended until the afternoon. According to media reports, the attackers have been detained and are being held at a police station. The breach coincides with the 22nd anniversary of the December 13, 2001, terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament that killed nine people, including several policemen.
On Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top political leaders and MPs were seen paying tributes to the victims of the attack at India’s old parliament building.
Notably, the security breach occurs just a week after Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US-based Sikh separatist leader, seemed to issue a threat to assault the parliament on December 13. Pannun is the subject of an ongoing investigation in both the United States and India into a foiled assassination plot against him reportedly coordinated by New Delhi.
Pannun reportedly said in a video released by Indian media sites, the authenticity of which RT cannot independently confirm, that the Indian government tried to “kill” him and that a response on December 13 will shake “the very foundation” of the parliament.
Pannun is the founder of the US-based Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), which advocates for the creation of a new nation-state called ‘Khalistan’ for the minority Sikhs in the Punjab region of northwestern India.
Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York issued an indictment this week linking an Indian government official to an assassination attempt on Pannun earlier this year, which the FBI stopped. New Delhi has formed its own high-level committee to investigate “all relevant aspects of the matter,” while emphasising that such techniques are “contrary to government policy.”
The request was made at a meeting with FBI Director Christopher Wray, who is in New Delhi to meet with the country’s senior intelligence and security officials, according to Reuters.According to Reuters, the problem of Khalistan movement in the United States was reviewed in “greater detail” by both countries’ internal security forces.
“India has requested that US officials share inputs on suspected individuals who have recently been recruited and embedded in the separatist movement,” the agency quoted an unnamed official as saying.
Meanwhile, Wray promised New Delhi that it was “aggressively” probing an attack on the Indian consulate in San Francisco earlier this year carried out by pro-Khalistan activists, according to the Times of India.
