Security personnel are on excessive alert at Kartavya Path close to Parliament House, as police arrest 5 individuals for a security breach at Lok Sabha, in New Delhi on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR
The Parliament constructing stood sullenly silent on Thursday, a day after a major security breach when two males jumped from the guests’ gallery into the Lok Sabha chamber.
There have been no milling crowds on its grounds, no selfie takers, and no MPs giving sound bites. There was a blanket ban on guests, apart from a bunch of college college students who marched in funereal silence accompanied by their lecturers and intently guided by the security employees. Wednesday’s cacophony was loudly conspicuous by its absence.
MPs, media segregated
A sequence of conferences to assessment security protocol and rectify loopholes have introduced a number of changes. One of the entrance-and-exit gates to the brand new constructing has now been completely reserved for MPs, segregating them from the remainder of the gang.
The media was saved at an arm’s size, with security pushing journalists nearer to the previous constructing and thoroughly barricading the MPs’ entrance to make sure that none might come in their approach. Any Parliamentarian wishing to talk to journalists now has to cross a number of barricades. No one, together with media personnel, are allowed to face for various minutes in the corridors.
The MPs, too, have been advised to decelerate, with no extra sprinting in and out of the gates to be allowed. In a Parliamentary bulletin printed on Wednesday evening, hours after the incident, MPs have been requested to strategy the “flap barriers slowly and wait till their image is captured by the Facial Recognition Device”. Former MPs too have been barred from coming into the Parliament.
Staff, guests face changes
The entrance and exit gates for the Parliament employees have additionally been modified. Many walked round disoriented in the brand new constructing, shedding their approach in the maze-like corridors and asking for instructions. “We could enter from the Makar Dwar (the common gate for the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Chamber) and we had memorised our way to our office through it. Now, we have to figure it out once again,” one staffer mentioned.
Even earlier than the incident, there was a three-tier security construction in place for guests. Barricades are positioned a minimum of 200 metres away from the Parliament constructing to test their passes. Valid pass-holders are then frisked twice earlier than they will attain the guests’ gallery. On Thursday, there was an enhanced security cowl, with sniffer canine squads patrolling the grounds.
Walking out of the chambers of each Houses to just about empty lobbies, a number of MPs appreciated the orderly ambiance. However, security personnel who’re below immense strain after yesterday’s slip-up mentioned that they have been overworked, warning that their current power is just not adequate to cowl the constructing’s a number of doorways, each opening out to the grounds and inside in the foyer and the chambers.