Parliament Smoke Attack Mastermind Last Seen Near Delhi: Sources

Initial inquiries suggest the date of the security breach - December 13 - was fixed on instructions from Lalit Jha, who is from Gurgaon.

The mastermind behind the Parliament smoke scare may well be Lalit Jha - now on the run - Delhi Police sources told NDTV Thursday afternoon. Sources have claimed a larger conspiracy behind the attack, in which two men popped yellow smoke canisters inside the Lok Sabha, and a man and a woman opened red and yellow canisters, shouting slogans against dictatorship, outside Parliament.

Initial inquiries suggest the date of the security breach - December 13 - was fixed on instructions from Lalit Jha, who is from Gurgaon. The date was significant because it was the 22nd anniversary of an attack on the old Parliament building by Pakistan-based terror groups, in which nine died.

Police sources said Jha had summoned his accomplices for a meeting in Gurgaon this week, ahead of executing their nefarious plot. His accomplices have been identified as Sagar Sharma and D Manoranjan (inside the Lok Sabha) and Neelam Devi and Amol Shinde (outside Parliament), as well as Vicky Sharma, whose house in Gurgaon the intruders met before yesterday morning's incident.