26th held in Baba Siddique murder case: Crime branch arrests mastermind Shubham Lonkar’s ‘close friend’ from Akola

Mumbai crime branch arrests a close aide in the Baba Siddique murder case, raising total arrests to 26, as investigation continues for main conspirators.

MUMBAI: The Mumbai crime branch on Friday arrested a 26-year-old man believed to be a close aide of mastermind shooter Shubham Lonkar from Akola district in connection with the Baba Siddique murder case, raising the total number of arrests to 26.

26th held in Baba Siddique murder case: Crime branch arrests mastermind Shubham Lonkar’s ‘close friend’ from Akola

The NCP leader and former Maharashtra minister was shot at on October 12 near his MLA son Zeeshan Siddique’s office in the Nirmal Nagar area in Bandra East. He died sometime later at a nearby hospital.

The crime branch team that had gone to Nagpur in connection with the probe held Sumit Dinkar Wagh, a resident of Panaj in Akot tehsil in Akola. “Wagh transferred money from an account in Karnataka Bank’s Petlad Branch in Gujarat’s Anand district to Nareshkumar, brother of arrested accused Gurmail Singh, as well as arrested accused Rupesh Mohol and Harishkumar. He transferred the money online using a SIM brought in the name of arrested accused Salman Vora,” he said.

“The money was transferred on the instructions of wanted accused Shubham Lonkar, who hails from the same tehsil as Wagh and the two are close friends. They were college mates in Akot. Salman Vora, a resident of Petlad in Anand, was held recently from Balapur in Akola,” the official added.

During interrogation, Wagh confessed that he gave ₹10,000 to Vora for opening a bank account in his name and while scrutinising the account, the police found transactions worth over ₹1 crore have taken place using the bank account in the last six months. Around ₹5 lakh were transferred to the accused’s bank account to give a deposit for the room rented in Kurla where shooters were staying and for their daily expenses, said a police officer.

Wagh is allegedly a cricket bookie, and the amount that came in the bank account were mostly through hawala channels. He will be brought to Mumbai and will be produced in court on Saturday.

Two main accused, Subham Lonkar and Zeeshan Akhtar, who allegedly planned the murder of the NCP leader, are still wanted even after nearly one and half months and their last location was traced to somewhere near Jama Masjid in Delhi in July. Police officers said that after planning the murder and recruiting shooters in June, Lonkar and Akhtar fled from Pune and Haryana respectively and met in Delhi. The Mumbai crime branch has been taking help from six states - Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat - but has not been able to nab the duo.

Till now, police have arrested a total of 26 accused in the case but still, the motive is not clear. The main shooter Shiv Kumar Gautam was arrested on November 10 from UP’s Bahraich district close to the Indo-Nepal border with the help of Uttar Pradesh’s Special Task Force (STF).

The police claimed that he had communicated with Lawrence’s brother, Anmol Bishnoi, through the Snapchat app at the instance of the murder’s main planner, Shubham Lonkar of Pune, who is currently absconding. Shivkumar confessed that he was promised ₹10 lakh and additional monthly expenses for murdering Siddique by the gang’s handlers. Apart from Shubham, another key conspirator, Zeeshan Akhtar, who allegedly handled the shooters, is still at large.

Shivkumar is a native of Gandara village in Bahraich district. After his interrogation, police managed to nab Akashdeep Karajsingh Gill on November 16 from Fazilka in Punjab, a town located just 11km from the Pakistan border. He, according to the police, was in direct touch with Anmol Bishnoi and was passing instructions to Sujit Singh alias Babbu and Subham Lonkar about Siddique’s murder. The police started digging the financial trail and arrested Salman Vohra, a native of Gujarat, on November 17 from Akola in Maharashtra. Authorities have confirmed accused Akashdeep Karajsingh Gill’s association with incarcerated gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.