The grave breach of Parliament that shocked the nation was a well-planned conspiracy going back nearly a year and involved one of the intruders getting a cobbler in Lucknow to carve 2.5-inch deep cavities in the soles of two pairs of shoes to stuff canisters of yellow smoke that triggered alarm in the heart of India’s democracy, investigators said on Thursday.
Four people accused of the crime – Sagar Sharma and Manoranjan D, who walked past three layers of security before rappelling down from the visitors’ gallery and spraying coloured smoke inside the Lok Sabha, and Amol Shinde and Neelam Singh, who were arrested while shouting slogans outside Parliament – were remanded to police custody for seven days on Thursday. A fifth accused, co-conspirator Lalit Jha, was arrested on Thursday night.
Police said they were focusing on the role of 34-year-old Manoranjan, an engineering graduate from Mysuru who used his family connections to procure two visitor passes from local parliamentarian Pratap Simha. Manoranjan had hosted the three male accused in Mysuru in 2021-22 to “discuss social issues” and had also met Neelam a year ago, police added.
“He was very active on Facebook and Instagram and always motivated them to do something big like a protest at Parliament,” said the investigator, requesting anonymity. “He told police that they wanted to get attention of the Prime Minister so that government may look into issues such as inflation and poverty.”
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The incursion – which came on the anniversary of the 2001 Parliament attack – was planned on a later date, December 14, but was brought forward after Manoranjan received the passes early, added the investigator.
A day after the brazen attack that triggered an uproar in Parliament and sparked troubling questions about lax security protocols, police pored over papers and interrogation transcripts to piece together the unlikely conspiracy stitched together by an e-rickshaw driver in Lucknow, the son of wage labourers in Latur, a government job aspirant in Jind, an engineering graduate in Mysuru and a tutor from Kolkata.
“All five protestors had visited Delhi earlier also, to protest at Parliament, but it didn’t happen as they could not procure Parliament entry passes for them. In June-July this year, Manoranjan procured a pass for himself and visited Parliament without creating any scene there. It is obvious that had this protest not been a premeditated act, Sagar Sharma, the other accused who entered Parliament with Manoranjan, wouldn’t have brought two pairs of ‘special’ shoes from Lucknow,” said the investigator.
“Since the sizes of the shoes matched the foot sizes of Manoranjan and Sagar, Manoranjan arranged two passes,” he added, requesting anonymity.
Day of the attack
The hours leading up to the incursion were hectic, said police. On December 10, Sharma left Lucknow for Delhi on Gomti Express. He arrived at the New Delhi Railway Station at 3.30pm that day, and met Shinde and Singh after an hour at the nearby Metro station. For the next three days, they stayed with Manoranjan at the house of his friend Vishal Sharma, alias Vicky, in Gurugram.
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At 9am on Wednesday, Sharma collected passes at 18 Mahadev Road from an assistant of Simha and reached Sadar Bazar around 10am, bought two Indian flags and travelled to India Gate to Singh, Manoranjan, Jha and Shinde, who were waiting.
“They all held the meeting at India Gate for around half-an-hour. It was decided that Sagar and Manoranjan will enter Parliament and were given one smoke bomb each of yellow colour,” said the investigator quoted above. The canisters had been procured by Shinde from Latur weeks before and passed on to Sharma.
The officer further said that even the timing of the protest was coordinated. “During their interrogation, all the four protestors revealed that they had planned to start the agitation and sloganeering, after the clocks – inside and outside Parliament – show 1pm. According to them, it was the reason that they didn’t have any watches or mobile phones with them at the time of protest,” he said.
Investigators also said that they decided at India Gate to not to threw the smoke bombs but hold them in their hands to show that they were harmless. “Sagar also hide some pamphlets in the shoes. They were supposed to throw pamphlets after throwing smoke bomb,” the investigator quoted above said.
Pamphlets targeting PM
In court, additional public prosecutors Atul Srivastava and Akhand Pratap Singh argued that the pamphlets and banners retrieved from the accused allegedly declared the Prime Minister as “missing” and portrayed him as a proclaimed offender. The prosecution also alleged that the four accused along with others conspired to attack Parliament with to terrify MPs and cause unrest in the country.
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The prosecution said it wanted to unearth the motive and take them to Lucknow, Mumbai and Mysuru, while investigating the financial transaction and funding for the crime. The remand application was opposed by legal aid counsel Umakant Kataria who argued that five days of police custody was enough as the cities that the police wanted to take the accused were not far.
How they joined hands
The accused first started interacting as members of a Facebook page dedicated to freedom fighter Bhagat Singh. The first physical meeting between two members of the group was in 2016-17, when Sharma and Manoranjan both participated in protests that demanded Chandigarh airport be named after freedom fighter Bhagat Singh, said police.
In 2021-22, Jha, Sharma, Shinde and Manoranjan met in Mysuru and stayed in a rented room. Over the past year, Manoranjan also met members separately in their home towns. In July 2022, Sharma, Jha and Manoranjan stayed in a hotel in Gurugram for two days. A year later, in July 2023, Sharma, Jha Singh and Shinde stayed in a hotel in Paharganj for 3-4 days, said police.
Another officer said Manoranjan told investigators they all met in Mysuru for raising “social issues” through some means about one-and-half years ago and they met again nine months ago, where they unanimously decided to use Parliament as means to demonstrate their protest.
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“As per the interrogation of the accused, Lalit met each of them many times before. After their meeting at India Gate on Wednesday morning, Jha took everybody’s mobile phones. Though he was assigned to conduct a Facebook Live of the protest, he ran away from the spot after the police nabbed the protestors,” he said.
Terror, conspiracy charges
On a complaint by Parliament staff, police filed a case under sections 186 (obstructing any public servant in the discharge of his public functions), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 452 (trespass to house with the motive to hurt someone), 153 (wantonly by doing anything which is illegal, gives provocation to any person intending or knowing it to be likely that such provocation will cause rioting), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 16 (punishment for terrorist act) and 18 (punishment for conspiracy) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
“They entered public gallery with their passes and sat in the public gallery in row number 3 and 4. At the time of exit, they deliberately jumped from the public gallery into the Lok Sabha chamber well where the Hon’ble MPs were sitting and participating in the ongoing Lok Sabha session just below the gallery at around 1300 hrs. They sprayed an unidentified chemical substance from a canister which they took out from their shoes, thereby endangering the lives of Hon’ble members of Parliament and raised slogans. This led to terror and panic among the MPs leading to disruption of functioning of Parliament. This act of terror further led to the adjournment of the session by presiding officer. This act not only led to terror and panic in MPs but in public at large also. They were restrained after a lot of resistance and scuffle with marshals/security staff,” the complaint said.
“By the above said premeditated and planned acts, the accused persons have conspired to overawe the public functionaries discharging their duties during parliament session by using criminal force,” it added.
