NEW DELHI — Police arrested two people who jumped from the visitors’ gallery into the lower house of India’s Parliament on Wednesday, the speaker said, in a major security breach on the anniversary of a deadly 2001 attack on the complex.
Two accomplices also were arrested outside the chamber, Parliament Speaker Om Birla said.
Security guards overpowered the intruders as one of them climbed over the tables of the lawmakers’ seating area, TV images showed. They carried small canisters that emitted yellow smoke, said Senthil Kumar, a lawmaker who was present in the chamber.
One of the arrested said she was a student protesting rising unemployment. “People’s voice is not being heard by the government. There can’t be a dictatorship in the country,” she told reporters as she was taken away by the police.
Lawmakers earlier in the day observed the anniversary of the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament by armed assailants who killed six police officers, two security guards, and a gardener. All the five attackers were killed by security forces. India blamed the attack on a Pakistan-based group.