Lucknow: Delhi Police have detained a 50-year-old man from Uttar Pradesh’s Jalaun district in connection with the security breach in the Lok Sabha on 13 December. The man, Orai resident Atul Kulshrestha, is suspected to be linked to another accused in this case through a ‘Bhagat Singh Fans Club’ page on Facebook, ThePrint has learnt.
Police officials in Jalaun described Kulshrestha as a “chronic alcoholic” and “influenced by leftist ideology.”
Jalaun Superintendent of Police (SP) Iraj Raja told ThePrint that Kulshrestha was detained by a Delhi Police team on the afternoon of 19 December. “He is a chronic alcoholic and is jobless. He has four sons who are earning, and (he) is mainly active on social media. It is being said that he was allegedly connected with the Parliament security breach accused through a social media group. We don’t have any more details,” he said.
Kulshrestha’s eldest son Abhishek, meanwhile, said a team of police officers asked his father to escort them around noon Tuesday, without revealing much about the grounds of detention.
“We have not been able to speak to our father. We only got to know that he spoke to one of the accused in the Parliament security breach, on Facebook six months ago. We have no more information. Police should at least show some proof of his involvement. How can they take away someone without proof?” he asked.
Questioned about the claim that his father was a member of a ‘Bhagat Singh Fans Club’ page on Facebook, Abhishek denied any knowledge of this and said that his father merely organised local events to mark the birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh. “He suffered a serious leg injury a few years back which is why he would stay at home,” he added.
On Wednesday, Delhi Police also detained a software engineer from Vidyagiri in Karnataka in connection with its probe into the security breach. The techie was reportedly the college batchmate of one of the two men who were apprehended while trying to stage a demonstration on the floor of the Lok Sabha using smoke canisters.
On 13 December, the two men jumped from the visitor’s gallery of the Lok Sabha onto the floor of the House and were seen trying to make their way to the Speaker’s chair before they were apprehended by MPs and handed over to the police.
At the same time, two individuals including a woman from Haryana’s Jind, were arrested from the Parliament complex for using gas canisters and raising slogans. Their arrests were followed by the surrender of one Lalit Jha, a teacher from Bihar who the Delhi Police have described as the “mastermind” in the case. He is among the six arrested in the case so far.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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