Five persons arrested in the Parliament security breach case on Wednesday accused Delhi Police in the court of torture to accept an association with the opposition parties.
Five of the six people arrested in the high-profile case told a court that they were allegedly being tortured by the probe officials to accept their link with opposition parties.
The submission was made before Additional Sessions Judge Hardeep Kaur, who extended the judicial custody of all the six accused till March 1.
Five of the accused -- Manoranjan D, Sagar Sharma, Lalit Jha, Amol Shinde and Mahesh Kumawat -- told the court that they were forced to sign about 70-odd blank papers.
"Accused persons were tortured/given electric shocks to sign and confess (to) the commission of crime under the UAPA and their association with national political parties," they told the court.
The court sought a reply from the police in the matter and fixed February 17 for hearing the application. The sixth accused in the case is Neelam Azad.
Accused wanted to do 'something big' for fame: Delhi Police
The Delhi Police probing the Parliament security beach case for more than 40 days on January 23 said the six accused were "self-funded and self-motivated" to do "something big" for the fame.
The accused also assumed that they would be let off even if they were arrested, thinking they were not committing any "serious crime", they said.
According to a senior police officer, the mastermind is suspected to be Manoranjan D, who had created a 'Bhagat Singh Fan Club' page on the social networking site Facebook and used it to motivate "like-minded" people to do "something big" for fame.
"The accused were known to each other for the last four years but the plan to breach parliament was hatched a year ago," the officer said.
However, not everyone in the fan club was on board with the idea of doing anything illegal like breaching parliament's security. As a result, several other members had left in the days leading to the December 13 incident, police said.
"Since Manoranjan had access to the BJP MP in Mysore, he decided to barge into parliament and replicate freedom fighter Bhagat Singh's act which was done in the Delhi Assembly during British rule," another officer said.
"They did not have enough money to hold in-person meetings, therefore they decided to remain in touch through social media and Signals app," the official said.
"Because of the shortage of money, they stayed at Vicky Sharma's residence in Gurugram before committing the crime on December 13, 2023," he said.
Vicky Sharma was also a part of the fan club on Facebook. He was released after being questioned by police.
All the six accused have been booked under the stringent UAPA and criminal conspiracy by the Delhi Police's anti-terror unit, Special Cell. Last, month the Delhi Police had conducted their polygraph, narco-analysis and brain mapping tests in Gujarat, to ascertain the exact reason of their act. The accused had that they were upset over the issues of unemployment, the Manipur crisis and farmers' agitation.
(With PTI inputs)
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