22 years since the 2001 Parliament attack, a look back at the day | India News

The morning of December 13, 2001, saw five terrorists entering the Parliament House Complex at around 11:40 am in a car fitted with forged Home Ministry sticker on its windshield. Upon suspicion, the car was forced to turn back, following which the terrorists got down and opened fire. This raised an alarm and all building gates were closed. At the time, over 100 ministers and/or MPs were present inside the Parliament.

Security personnel take position after the Parliament was attacked by terrorist groups. (Express Archive Photo by Ravi Batra)

The firing that lasted for over 30 minutes, leaving five terrorists, eight security personnel and a gardener dead, and 15 injured.

Army personnel carrying rocket launcher after attack on Parliament. (Express Archive Photo by Ravi Batra)

L K Advani, the then Home Minister, stated that the attack was executed jointly by Pakistan-based terrorist outfits — Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. According to the investigation, he said that “all five terrorists who formed the suicide squad were Pakistani nationals… Their Indian associated have since been nabbed and arrested.”

Bullets marks from the 2001 Parliament attack are visible stil on the walls of the powerhouse of Indian politics on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the attack in New Delhi on monday (2012).

Advani referred to the attack as the “most audacious, and also the most alarming act of terrorism in the nearly two-decades-long history of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in India.”

Accused of Parliament attack on 13th December 2001, Shaukat Hussain, SAR Geelani and Afzal Guru. (Express archive photo by Naveen Jora)

Following an FIR registered by the police on the same day of the attack, the Delhi Police arrested Mohammad Afzal Guru, a former Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front militant who had surrendered in 1994, his cousin Shaukat Husain Guru, Shaukat’s wife Afsan Guru, and S A R Geelani, a lecturer of Arabic at Delhi University.

The clothes worn by the terrorists are seen at the Parliament complex in New Delhi on December 13, 2001. (Archive Photo)

Guru, Geelani and Shaukat were sentenced to death and Afsan was acquitted by a trial court on December 29, 2001. Geelani was acquitted in 2003, while Shaukat was sent to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment in 2005. In September 2006, the court ordered that Afzal Guru be hanged.

A grave has been reserved for Afzal Guru next to the Grave of Mohd Makbool Bhat at Mazar-e-Shudha Eidgah in old city Srinagar. (Express Photo by Shuaib Masoodi)

The then President Pranab Mukherjee, on February 3, 2013, rejected the mercy petition filed by Guru’s wife, and he was hanged six days later. His remains were buried in the Tihar jail.