Baba Siddique murder: Five persons, including main shooter, arrested from UP

Mumbai police arrested main shooter Shivkumar Gautam and four associates in connection with NCP leader Baba Siddique's murder; 23 arrests made

MUMBAI: A month after the killing of senior NCP leader Baba Siddique in Bandra (East) by three shooters, the Mumbai Crime Branch, along with the Uttar Pradesh’s Special Task Force (STF), arrested the alleged main shooter, Shivkumar Gautam, and his four associates from UP’s Bahraich district close to the Indo-Nepal border on Sunday. The number of arrests in the case is now 23.

A month after the killing of senior NCP leader Baba Siddique in Bandra (East) by three shooters, the Mumbai Crime Branch, along with the Uttar Pradesh’s Special Task Force (STF), arrested the alleged main shooter, Shivkumar Gautam. (PTI Photo)(PTI)

Shivkumar allegedly works for the inter-state gang of incarcerated gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. 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. The other four arrested accused—Anurag Kashyap who is Shivkumar’s brother, Gyan Prakash Tripathi, Akash Shrivastava and Akhilendra Pratap Singh—are also natives of Gandara, and provided shelter to him when he was on the run.

The Mumbai police approached the STF on October 23, requesting their help to nab Shivkumar and the other absconding accused. Pramesh Kumar Shukla, deputy superintendent of police, STF Lucknow, coordinated and gathered information about Shivkumar, and found that he and his associates were hiding somewhere in the Nanpara police station area of Bahraich and attempting to flee to Nepal. A joint team of STF sub-inspector Javed Siddiqui, constable Munendra Singh and constable Ajit Kumar Singh along with Mumbai Crime Branch inspector Amol Kumar Mali went to Nanpara, and before Shivkumar managed to flee, arrested all five suspects.

Baba Siddique was shot dead on October 12 outside the Bandra East office of his MLA son Zeeshan Siddiqui. Two of the three shooters involved, Dharmaraj Kashyap and Gurmail Singh, were arrested the same day from the crime scene while Shivkumar managed to slip away in the melee. Kashyap and Singh had allegedly revealed that the murder was committed at the behest of notorious criminal Lawrence Bishnoi, who is in a Gujarat jail.

During his interrogation, Shivkumar corroborated what the arrested accused had said earlier: that Shubham Lonkar, a resident of Pune, and Yasin Akhtar alias Zeeshan Akhtar, a native of Jalandhar, were the handlers of the shooters and had provided them with guns as well as logistics.

He also confessed that shooter Dharamraj Kashyap was from the same village and both used to work in a scrap shop in Pune. The scrap shop and Shubham Lonkar’s milk products store were next to each other. He said that Shubham Lonkar worked for Lawrence Bishnoi and had him talk to Lawrence Bishnoi’s brother, Anmol, several times over Snapchat.

Shivkumar revealed that Lonkar and Yasin Akhtar had provided weapons and cartridges as well as SIM cards and mobile phones to the three shooters so that they could communicate. After the murder they were given new SIMs and mobile phones.

The shooter added that after he escaped post the murder, he threw his phone away en route and went to Pune. From Pune, he reached Bahraich via Jhansi and Lucknow, said a UP STF official.

During his escape to UP, Shivkumar communicated with his handlers by borrowing people’s mobile phones in the train. He also confessed that he spoke to his brother, Anurag Kashyap, who said that Akhilendra Pratap Singh, Gyan Prakash and Shrivastava would make arrangements for him to hide in Nepal. That was why he went to Bahraich with other gang members, said an official of the UP STF.

Jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi’s younger brother, Anmol, who is believed to be living in Canada and often travelling to the US, was allegedly behind the murder, but his motive was still not clear, said the police.