New Delhi: Key accused in last year’s Parliament security breach case Manoranjan D. was influenced by Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara and the decision to throw a smoke canister was inspired by a 2018 incident in Kosovo’s Parliament where opposition leaders had lobbed tear gas shells, says the Delhi Police’s chargesheet filed in the case, accessed by ThePrint.
In 2018, opposition lawmakers set off tear gas canisters in Kosovo’s Parliament chamber in a bid to prevent the ratification of a border agreement with neighbouring country Montenegro. Videos put on social media showed lawmakers wiping their eyes and noses as they left the chamber in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina.
According to a source privy to the Parliament breach investigation, Manoranjan and his associates expected to get the “nation’s attention, glory and publicity” by carrying out a Kosovo-style attack. The source added that during the investigation, no evidence of any “organisational backing” or a “larger conspiracy to carry out an attack in Parliament “ was found. The source said that the group was found to be completely “directionless” with no “clear roadmap” on what to do after carrying out the breach.
“No external link of funding has been established so far,” the source said. “There is no evidence to suggest that the group was part of any larger organisation, or larger conspiracy. It was just a group of people who met over social media and planned this activity to get attention and become popular.”
“They were members of a Facebook page named after revolutionary Bhagat Singh, where they shared and discussed the idea to disrupt the Parliament to ‘shake the conscience of the nation’. They thought that this action will create an impact which may lead to the collapse of the government,” the source added.
Manoranjan also maintained a diary called ‘Ladakh Diaries’ on lines of Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries — a memoir of his travels in which he wrote about how they exposed him to deep poverty and social injustice leading to his revolutionary convictions — the source said.
“He (Manoranjan) thinks of himself as a revolutionary and has a grandiose sense of self-importance. He did this as he thought that the country would stand by his side if he succeeded in this. The other five accused were also highly influenced by his ideas and his leadership. He is the one who planned this entire operation,” the source said.
The Delhi Police had filed its chargesheet in the Parliament breach case Friday, and charged all six arrested accused under provisions of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA.
In the nearly 1,000-page chargesheet filed before Additional Sessions Judge Hardeep Kaur at the Patiala House Court, the Special Cell accused Manoranjan of being the kingpin of the conspiracy hatched over the course of the two years leading up to the attack, police had told ThePrint.
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‘Led to terror, even if no intention’
Although the Delhi Police has charged all six arrested under the provisions of UAPA, it could not be established through evidence that there was an “intent to create terror”, a police source said.
However, the charges were invoked as the “impact of their act induced terror among the visitors in the gallery”, the source added.
“Their intent may have been to disrupt, as per their interrogation, but its impact was that it led to terror. During interrogation the accused were extremely incoherent in their statements. They did not have any clear line of thought, even when questioned about their intent and motive,” the source further said. “But their actions of jumping into the gallery, throwing the canister, terrorised the people inside the gallery and they could have been harmed because of the gas. It could have led to damage.”
The security breach
On 13 December last year, Manoranjan, along with another accused Sagar Sharma, had entered Parliament with smoke canisters concealed in their shoes and jumped into the MP seating area from the visitors’ gallery in a major security breach. The duo had managed entry passes to the gallery through then BJP MP from Mysore, Pratap Simha.
Soon after, the police arrested Neelam Azad and Anmol Shinde from outside Parliament where they were raising slogans saying “tanashahi nahi chalegi (out with dictatorship)”.
Another accused, named Lalit Jha, filmed a video of Azad and Shinde’s protest and streamed it online before fleeing the spot. However, he surrendered at Kartavya Path police station a couple of days later. Jha’s accomplice Mahesh Kumawat, who also surrendered, was booked by the investigators for destruction of evidence and criminal conspiracy as he had helped Jha flee from the spot where Azad and Shinde were arrested.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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