Parliament security breach: Other five significant instances of similar overt transgressions worldwide

It was a regular midweek wintry afternoon in the lower House of Parliament in India, on the 13th of December, 2023. Zero Hour had just commenced (the first hour of every sitting of both Houses of Parliament, directly after Question Hour), when two unidentified men stormed the complex and while one popped canisters containing yellow smoke, the other proceeded to jump from desk to desk in an attempt to reach the Lok Sabha Speaker’s desk, as panicked Parliamentarians looked on in disbelief while some of them tried to restrain and thrash him. The session was adjourned as the lawmakers made their way outside in utter shock. This inconceivably shocking incident took place on the 22nd anniversary of the previously deadly Parliament Attack of 2001, which had caused nine deaths and other injuries. The men inside the Parliament have been identified as Sagar Sharma, an e-rickshaw driver and Manoranjan D, an engineer from Mysuru. Three others who were outside Parliament, protesting causing mayhem while recording videos were also apprehended. They were Deveraj Gowde, also an engineer, Neelam Azad, teacher and Anmol Shinde, an Indian Army aspirant. The fifth one was Lalit Jha, the mastermind who has been arrested. On the face of it these people seem to have nothing outwardly in common, except they’re all members of a social media page going by the moniker “Bhagat Singh Fan Club”. They claim to have been protesting against issues such as unemployment and unrest in Manipur, presumably inspired by Bhagat Singh’s attempt to rock the British Empire when he had tossed two weak bombs into Delhi’s Central Assembly (then Parliament), 94 odd years ago. Even though there was no significant damage caused, the nation is still swaying in disbelief that the security of such an intensely guarded building such as the Parliament, newly inaugurated by PM Modi, in May, could be violated in this manner. However, it’s necessary to remember that this is a constant threat for any administration or government. There are two types of breaches, digital and physical that have unlimited scope for causing chaos and disruption within any society or organisation. Physical breaches can either involve a loss of property or data, due to a location getting compromised, or as in this case, be overt in nature, due to the inability to protect bad actors from unauthorised entry. They say history teaches us the best solutions so let’s remember some significant instances of overt physical breach akin to this latest incident.

1. January 6 US Capitol Attack – The storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, by a mob of supporters of Republican President Donald Trump, which disrupted a session of Congress that had convened to certify the results of the 2020 Presidential Elections which Trump had lost to his Democratic opponent Joe Biden. Since, this attack was planned in order to prevent a legally elected President from assuming office it was given the status of domestic terrorism. The rioters caused an estimated 1.5 million USD in physical damages.
2. The 2017 storming of the Macedonian Parliament – Also known as Bloody Thursday and regarded as the most significant attack on a Macedonian institution, some 200 Macedonian nationalists stormed the Macedonian Parliament on 27th April of 2017 in reaction to the election of Talat Xhaferi, an ethnic Albanian as Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia. The protestors were masked as they resorted to physical violence punching journalists and MPs, severely injuring two political leaders Zoran Zaev and Radmila Sekerinska. The initially overwhelmed police eventually had to resort to stun grenades to break up the mob.
3. The 2023 Brazilian Congress Attack – On 8th January 2023, following the defeat of then President Jair Bolsonaro and the inauguration of his successor the current President, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, a gang of Bolsonaro’s supporters attacked Brazil’s federal government buildings in the capital Brasilia. They invaded and caused damage to the Supreme Federal Court, the National Congress Building and the Planalto Presidential Palace, in a bid to violently overthrow the democratically elected current President Lula. It took more than five hours for the police to clear all buildings of all the rioters. This incident prompted the President to authorise a federal state of emergency throughout January 2023.
4. The Storming of the Knesset, Israel in 1952 and 2023 – The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel. In 1952, the Knesset was stormed by supporters of Menahem Begin to protest any negotiations between Israel and West Germany to secure reparations for the crimes of the Holocaust. In early 2023 protests were again initiated at the Knesset, as Israeli protestors tried to break into the Parliament as the judicial reforms they opposed were being debated by the lawmakers. They were mostly thwarted by barricades and the few who managed to get into the building were removed forcibly by the security personnel.
5. The 1993 Shelling of the Russian “White House” – During the 1993 constitutional crisis in Russia, President Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks and airborne troops to shell and storm the “White House”, the Russian Parliament (Supreme Soviet) building in order to suppress the Opposition from trying to remove him. The President Boris Yeltsin resolved his standoff with the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation by storming the “White House”, which not only resulted in a large number of casualties, but also in the loss of faith in democracy and the eventual emergence of the overwhelming dominance of executive power in Russia which has been the same since.

Security experts say that humans are the weakest link in any security system. In order to properly prepare, an administration must carefully consider situations which might require coordination between multiple teams and cadres in order to reliably secure against physical threats. Mischief makers of anarchists may not need a large mob of people in order to storm a physical security system, as demonstrated by Wednesday’s incident at the Indian Parliament. However, all of these events in unison show a need for crisis coordination plans that encourage direct communication channels between security guards, law enforcement, cybersecurity specialists and emergency medical teams in order to handle any incident of physical breach such as these. Vigilance is always the key to protection. The author is a freelance journalist and features writer based out of Delhi. Her main areas of focus are politics, social issues, climate change and lifestyle-related topics. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.