Detainee, Saikrishna, a resident of Bagalkot and collegemate of one of the arrested accused, Manoranjan, was allegedly in touch with him over phone.
Published Dec 21, 2023 | 1:06 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 21, 2023 | 1:06 PM
Chaos after gas canisters were set off in Parliament by two youth on 13 December 2023 in severe security breach. (X)
A New Delhi Special Cell police team, probing into the Parliamentary Security Breach case, has picked up a retired Deputy Superintendent of Police’s son from Karnataka’s Bagalkot district on Wednesday night, 20 December.
The detained person — Saikrishna Jagali — is a software engineer by profession and was working in his house when the Delhi police knocked on the doors. Saikrishna was working as a techie, developing apps for a multinational company in Bengaluru, but he had quit his job and was developing apps independently.
He was picked up around 10 pm from his house in Vidyagiri in the district headquarters town of Bagalkote. He is said to be one of the three roommates and a batchmate of Manoranjan while pursuing an Engineering degree in Bengaluru.
Manoranjan is one of the accused in the Parliamentary Security Breach case.
Saikrishna’s sister, Spandana, informed reporters that Delhi police visited their town two days ago and arrived at their house on Wednesday night, questioning him. She stated that they took him for additional inquiries in the Manoranjan-involved Parliamentary security breach case.
Spandana emphasised that her brother had not committed any mistake and that the police took him only for questioning. According to her, police officials from Delhi had come two days ago, informing them about the need for further questioning.
She said, “He hasn’t made any mistakes, so we didn’t have any problems sending him for questioning. He wasn’t in contact with the accused, only a roommate. There were only three students from his department in the college, so they were just roommates.”
She iterated to reporters outside their Bagalkot house, “My brother isn’t involved in these things. He wasn’t in contact with the accused., who had discontinued his BE course. My brother quit his job and is currently developing his own apps. Previously, he used to work from home, but not anymore.”
While police sources in Bagalkot indicated that Saikrishna was in contact with Manoranjan over the phone a few times, and the accused person’s call records had Saikrishna’s phone number, Spandana insisted that her brother was not involved in the case.
She explained that he was likely in touch with Manoranjan as a collegemate, and after Manoranjan dropped out of college, Saikrishna had limited ties with him as an old friend. The two were batchmates at a Computer Science Engineering College in Bengaluru.
“The Delhi police had come and asked him questions, and he answered them, and we all were cooperative with the police who told us they were taking him for additional questioning at New Delhi,” Spandana iterated.
Simultaneously, another man connected to the case, identified as Atul Kulshreshtha, was picked up from the Jalaun district of Uttar Pradesh by Delhi police. Preliminary investigations revealed that Atul alias Baccha had no past criminal records or political affiliation, but he was passionate about Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s ideologies since his student life.
According to police, the two men are suspected to be a part of the now-deleted Facebook page “Bhagat Singh Fan Club”, which was created by Manoranjan before the security breach incident, said sources.
On 13 December, two people — Sagar Sharma and Karnataka man Manoranjan D — jumped into the well of the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors’ gallery, shouted slogans like “Tanashahi nahi chalegi” (Dictatorship will not allowed), and released yellow smoke from canisters that triggered panic and chaos in the House.
The accused visitors at the gallery, who obtained passes from BJP MP Pratap Simha from Karnataka, committed the offence to register their protest against the government.
Outside the Parliament, Amol Shinde and Neelam Azad released smoke cannisters and raised slogans. They were arrested as well. Later, Lalit Jha, the mastermind in the case, and his associate Mahesh Kumawat were also arrested.
The accused told the police that their objective was to protest to garner attention to the Manipur fallout, unemployment issue, and farmers crisis in the country.
