New Delhi: The son of a retired Deputy Superintendent of Karnataka Police has been detained by the Delhi Police in connection with the Parliament breach, ThePrint has learnt.
According to sources in the police, the accused, identified as Sai Krishna, is a resident of Bagalkot district of Karnataka. A B.Tech graduate, Krishna was D. Manoranjan’s batchmate in engineering. Manoranjan along with Sagar Sharma, Neelam Azad, Lalit Jha and Anmol Shinde were earlier arrested by the Delhi Police.
“He was Manoranjan’s batchmate as well as roommate in college,” a source said. “Krishna is being questioned. Further investigation is on.”
Manoranjan’s diary mentions Krishna a couple of times and call detail records showed they were in touch after college as well, the sources said.
Investigators are accessing the details of the accused’s bank account and analysing them in connection with the case. “We suspect this was part of a larger conspiracy to create unrest in the country. We are probing if any external or anti-India organisation is involved in this,” another source said.
Krishna’s elder sister Spandhana Shekannava, meanwhile, claimed her brother had done no wrong.
“My brother has done no wrong and has been taken for questioning, nothing else. Police had come from Delhi to our place. They had first questioned him here two days ago and later told us that he needs to go with them to Delhi. We had no problem with it since he has done no wrong,” Spandhana told the media in Bengaluru.
“He (my brother) was not in contact with Manoranjan but he was his room mate. There were 3 people but they were just roommates. Manoranjan was not like this, but we aren’t sure why he did what he did.”
On 13 December, the day of the Parliament breach, D. Manoranjan and Sagar Sharma jumped from the visitors’ gallery into the Lok Sabha chamber while Parliament was in session and threw a smoke canister.
Their accomplices Neelam Azad and Anmol Shinde raised slogans of ‘Tanashahi nahi chalegi (Down with dictatorship)’ outside Parliament and also opened a smoke canister.
Lalit Jha had allegedly made videos from outside and sent it across on social media. He also burnt the phones of the other accused in Rajasthan after the incident and returned to Delhi days later.
Soon after the incident, the accused were booked under the stringent sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. They have also been charged under Sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 452 (trespass), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), and 353 (criminal force to deter public servants from discharge of duty) of IPC.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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