Pepper attack: Parliament security panel to discuss MPs' frisking

With the pepper spray attack in Lok Sabha evoking widespread outrage, an emergency meeting of the Committee on Security in Parliament complex on Monday is expected to face a ticklish task as the issue of frisking of MPs could come up.

Speaker Meira Kumar has directed that the Committee, headed by Deputy Speaker Karia Munda hold the meeting to consider the events on Thursday last which saw expelled Congress member L Rajagopal using pepper spray to prevent introduction of the Telangana bill in the Lower House.

Rajagopal had attracted widespread condemnation. "We really have a difficult task at hand. We have taken proper care after the terror strike in Parliament on December 13 a decade back so that such incidents do not recur. But what can one do when a family member himself tries to set the house on fire?" a member of the Committee on Security, who declined to be identified, remarked in anguish.

The Committee will examine all security-related matters, including means to prevent bringing of dangerous and life-threatening material into the Chamber of the House by MPs.

"The pros and cons about the various security measures that should be adopted will be considered in detail by the Committee," an official announcement had said earlier without elaborating on the mechanism to be adopted.

A Congress member from Telangana Ponnam Prabhakar has already complained to the Speaker for initiating criminal action against  Rajagopal and TDP member Venugopal Reddy.

Prabhakar said he will file a complaint with Parliament Street police station.