Two ruling party legislators came under fire on Thursday for staging a mock attack on the nations top university, purportedly to "test" whether police could handle such an incident as the deadly shootings in Virginia.
Democratic Progressive Party Lawmakers Lee Chen-nan （李鎮南） and Lin Kuo-ching （林國慶） Wednesday entered a building at National Taiwan University and said that three students were being held as hostages by two unidentified armed suspects, said NTU Secretary-general Fu Li-chen.

Hsiao Yi-shan （蕭依珊）, the head of NTUs student association, showed her strong disapproval of the stunt, noting that the ridiculous dry run actually caused immense inconvenience to students, as examinations are being held this week at NTU, and criticized the lawmakers for being so arrogant in thinking that they could conduct such a "simulated attack" without any notice.

According to local media, several police cars rushed to the campus, along with a large number of policemen, who were reportedly unamused to arrive at the school to be confronted by lawmakers and members of the press instead of armed assailants.

According to Cabinet spokeswoman Chen Mei-ling（陳美伶）, Premier Su Tseng-chang （蘇貞昌） also expressed his anger over the incident, explaining not only did the lawmakers create a disturbance at the university, they also wasted the time of the police and school authorities over the hoax.

Across party lines, criticism of the stunt was fierce, with DPP legislative caucus whip Wang Sing-nan （王幸男） issuing an apology to the public for the disturbance caused by the two lawmakers, saying it was most improper for the two lawmakers to stage the mock attack which nearly started a panic, especially after the deaths of 32 students at Virginia Tech University in the U.S.

Opposition Kuomintang legislative caucus demanded the two lawmakers be put before the legislatures disciplinary committee.

Lin and Lee both apologized for the inconvenience they brought to students, but reiterated that they had staged the mock attack with the good intentions of urging the public to put an emphasis on campus security, so such an incident as the one that occurred in the U.S. cannot happen here.

Cabinet spokeswoman Chen said that Premier Su will be asking the judicial authorities to investigate whether the two lawmakers violated the law when they filed a false report with the police that armed suspects had taken hostages.

Chen added that the officials at the Ministry of Education who accompanied the two lawmakers to the NTU should also be punished.

In reply, the MOE denied being in the know about the plan. According to an MOE official Ke Hui-chen （柯慧貞）, the MOE received a message from the lawmakers saying that they wanted to see how the university takes precautions against such incidents.

Ke noted that after she came to the NTU and discovered the two lawmakers intention to conduct a "dry run," she insisted that nothing could happen on campus unless the two lawmakers plan had the approval of the university authorities as well as the school principal.

Once she received NTU Principal Lee Si-chens （李嗣涔） approval, the two lawmakers started the action, Ke stressed.

The MOE warned that schools have to step up their efforts to improve campus security as the number of security incidents increased from 1,990 in 2005 to 3,116 last year.

According to the MOE, security incidents claimed the lives of 29 students and injured 1,097 students last year.