“Sovereignty Under Siege” continues…

It had been quite some time since the last bullet had been fired. Yet the parliamentarians were still too scared to come out of the Parliament House. The Watch and Ward staff were doing their best to convince the parliamentarians that it was all over, and they could leave the premises safely. However, the parliamentarians demanded that security make a safe passage for them by standing in a line, hand-in-hand, on either side of the porch, effectively creating two human shields. It was only when their demand was met that our lawmakers emerged from the citadel of democracy, one after the other in single file, cowering and shivering in fear. They walked between the human walls, crouching with their hands over their heads, quickly got into their vehicles and left. A few of them crouched down on the floors of their cars.

There is another amusing story, apocryphal though, that when the door-to-door search of the Parliament was under way, a certain cabinet minister was found hiding under his office table by a Delhi Police officer. Soon after the officer stepped into the room, the minister’s mobile phone rang, giving his hiding place away. The officer’s immediate reaction was to cock his pistol and challenge the man to come out with his hands on his head. To his horror, the officer saw the cabinet minister emerge from under the table.

The Special Cell carried out a proper search of the crime scene. The bodies of the five slain terrorists were searched, one by one. The militants had come heavily armed with automatic assault rifles, pistols, hand and rifle grenades, electronic detonators, spare ammunition, explosives in the form of IEDs such as tiffin bombs, and a sophisticated bomb kept in the boot of the car. Commenting on the weaponry and explosives much later, the Delhi High Court, while hearing the appeal of the convicted accused, observed: ‘The fire power was awesome, enough to engage a battalion, and had the attack succeeded, the entire building with all inside would have perished.’

To be continued…