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Friday, Dec 01, 2006
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Security drill at Parliament House

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: With the anniversary of the terrorist attack on Parliament not far away, security agencies carried out a mock drill at Parliament House Annexe on Thursday to test their preparedness.

Around 2 p.m., an alert was sounded following an "input" that a bag containing explosives had been planted somewhere in the Parliament House Annexe. Bomb detection and disposal squads rushed to the spot and carried out an extensive combing exercise.

A section of the electronic media took the exercise for real and reported that there was a bomb scare in Parliament.

The drill went on for about half-an-hour.

The security personnel took positions and blocked all the entrance gates.

Later, Joint Secretary (Lok Sabha Security) Kanwaljeet Deol confirmed to the media that it was a security drill.

According to sources, security has been stepped up in and around Parliament besides other Government installations in the past few days following strong inputs of a possible terrorist strike.

On Thursday, the security personnel deployed at the entry gate to the Parliament complex were seen conducting frisking of all visitors.

"Our shoes were also checked," said one of the visitors.

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