New Delhi, Dec 22 – A Delhi court on Friday extended till January 5 the police custody of Lalit Jha, the alleged mastermind in the Parliament security breach case.
The same court of Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Hardeep Kaur on Thursday also extended till January 5 the police custody of four other accused persons arrested in connection with the case.
The accused individuals — Sagar Sharma, Manoranjan D., Neelam Azad and Amol Shinde — were presented before the ASJ of Patiala House Courts. All four were arrested from the Parliament premises.
Five persons were directly involved in the planning and execution of the security breach in the Lok Sabha on December 13, the 22nd anniversary of the 2001 Parliament terror attack.
After being on the run following the incident on December 13, Jha, a native of Bihar, had surrendered before the Kartavya Path police station in New Delhi district the next night.
The court extended his custody on an application moved by the police.
On Thursday, the Delhi Police had told the court that the accused in the case were “hardened criminals”, consistently altering their statements
“He is a mastermind. We need his custody to unearth the whole conspiracy and the main motive behind the incident. We need to travel and take him to different cities and places. We need his custody to recover the mobile devices also,” Delhi Police had earlier told the court.
Delhi Police have registered an FIR under the relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal code against the accused persons.
The prosecution had labelled the arrested individuals as terrorists, asserting that they orchestrated a well-planned attack inside Parliament with the intention of inciting fear.
The police said the individuals exceeded their rights by jumping from the visitors’ gallery into the Lok Sabha chamber, which amounted to trespass.
The police also claimed that the accused concealed canisters in their shoes and stressed on the need for their custody to determine their actual motive and identify any other individuals involved.
“The special shoes were made in Lucknow, which need to be probed. They need to be taken to Mumbai, Mysore, and Lucknow for the probe,” police told the court.
The police further submitted that the accused carried pamphlets that showed and declared Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a ‘missing’ person with a caption that the person who finds him will be paid money from Swiss Bank.
“The accused persons portrayed the PM like a proclaimed offender,” the police said.
Two of them — Sagar and Manoranjan — burst yellow smoke canisters after jumping into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors’ gallery before they were overpowered by the MPs present in the House.
Two others — Neelam and Amol — also burst smoke canisters and raised slogans outside the Parliament. Jha, believed to be the mastermind of the entire plan, reportedly fled with the mobile phones of the four others from the Parliament, sources said.
Manoranjan is from Mysuru, Sagar is a resident of Lucknow, Neelam is from Haryana’s Jind, while Amol hails from Maharashtra’s Latur.