‘Parliament Pass Checked 6-7 Times, Shoes Removed, Airport-Style Frisking’: Tight Security After Yesterday’s Breach

“Take off your shoes, empty your pockets” — said the security personnel to a person next to me in the queue at the reception gate of the Parliament House on Thursday morning.

This was the same gate perhaps from where two miscreants carrying visitor passes entered Parliament on Wednesday, hiding smoke canisters inside their shoes, had jumped from the Visitors’ Gallery into the House. The shocking incident has led to heightened security measures on the Parliament premises on Thursday, with airport-style frisking into place now.

My parliament pass was checked at over half-a-dozen points on the way to Parliament on Thursday, in a big step up from earlier. Once at the reception, the frisking was far more thorough with the security person double-checking every item I was carrying inside. At least two persons in the queue were asked to remove their shoes and get the same checked after yesterday.

Inside the Parliament premises, at the Makar Dwar, from where MPs enter the building, the media has now been barred from standing near the gate. The area around the Makar Dwar has been cordoned off for MPs, and journalists have been asked to stand at a big distance. At the entry gates of the media — Shardul and Garud Dwars — two men were doing a thorough pat down of all visitors here, leading to a longer queue. Passes of media were also double-checked by the security-men.

At the third-level check before the visitors’ gallery, the security was far more heightened as well with media passes being checked again. Visitors have been barred from coming to Parliament since yesterday’s incident so the corridor of the visitors’ gallery bore a deserted look. Only a few journalists could be seen in the corridor going towards the media gallery here.

Gurpreet Singh Aujla, the Congress MP who caught one of the intruders, told News18 that he wished the security measures had always been as tight as they were on Thursday. “If the security had been as tight as today, yesterday’s incident would not have happened. I want that visitors’ entry should be reopened soon as people should not be stopped from coming and seeing Parliament. We need more security measures surely,” Aujla told News18.