Unearthing a major breach of Parliament's security system, the Delhi police have arrested a person who allegedly posed as a journalist and had even managed a Press Information Bureau card to gain entry into the complex.

Syed Nusrat Ali (32), a native of Jalon district in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested from his Jamia Nagar residence in south Delhi on Tuesday night, police said.

He was nabbed while trying to fraudulently obtain a Press Gallery Card for the coming session by presenting himself as a special correspondent of the Indian Express and forging the signature of the paper's Chief Editor Shekhar Gupta, police said.

Investigations revealed that Ali had attended the previous five sessions of Parliament using the same modus operandi. Ali disappeared after the fraud was detected.

Police said Ali had earlier been arrested in 1998 in forgery cases in Delhi and Jhansi (in Uttar Pradesh).

Despite this, last year he managed to get a PIB card issued by the Union Home Ministry after police verification.

The accused had even been involved in various cases of cheating and impersonation and had in 1997 allegedly forged the signatures of then railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan, his private secretary S M Abdul Faheem and the Member of Parliament from Jalon Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma, they said.

He was produced before a court, which remanded him to two days' police custody.

PTI