Siddique murder: Trail runs cold as motive eludes cops

Former minister Baba Siddique was shot dead in Mumbai; police arrested 26 suspects but remain unclear on the motive behind the high-profile murder.

MUMBAI: At around 9.30 pm, gunshots rang out in a Mumbai suburb even as a festive procession wended its way on a busy street only a few yards away. Three of the six bullets fired hit their target –former minister and NCP politician, Baba Siddique. He died on the spot. Siddique had just emerged from his son, Zeeshan Siddique’s office in Khernagar, Bandra East, and was walking towards his car when he was shot at close range.

This is the second arrest made from Punjab in connection with the murder of Baba Siddique.

Two months on and 26 arrests later, police claim they are yet to uncover the motive for the high-profile murder, a hit believed to have been ordered by Anmol Bishnoi, brother of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.

The initial arrests were dramatic – two of the three shooters were apprehended while attempting to flee the crime scene under the cover of darkness. They were Dharmaraj Kashyap and Gurmail Singh. The third, Shiv Kumar Gautam, escaped but was arrested around a month later, from a village near the India-Nepal border.

The interrogation of Kashyap and Singh sent police on a trail that led from Mumbai and Pune, to various cities in North India, from where many of the accused hail, and to Gujarat and Rajasthan, where police made more arrests.

Police had already identified the two alleged main conspirators – Subham Lonkar, who ran a dairy in Pune; and Zeeshan Akhtar, a native of Jalandhar in Punjab. Close confidants of Anmol Bishnoi, they were tasked with Siddique’s murder in May this year. Police found that the conspiracy had been hatched in Pune by Subham Lonkar, along with his brother Pravin and the three shooters, all of whom worked in scrap shops near Lonkar’s dairy. Gautam had been offered ₹10 lakh for the hit, and safe passage across India’s border with Nepal, while Kashyap and Gurmail Singh were supporting shooters, their role being to act if Gautam failed to execute the hit.

The third arrest was that of Pravin Lonkar, followed by the arrest of a few others, who played minor roles in the case, such as providing logistical support, moving money around, buying SIM cards and cell phones used by the accused, and procuring the weapons used in the crime.

Subsequently, police busted a module linked to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, with the arrest of Nitin Gautam Sapre, a history sheeter from Dombivali, near Mumbai. It appears that Subham Lonkar had first offered Sapre the hit job but he proved too expensive, demanding ₹50 lakh. He eventually backed out.

The next few arrests revealed that the weapons used in the murder had been procured from a village near the India-Pakistan border, in Rajasthan. They were a Turkey-made Tisas, an Austrian Glock and a country-made pistol.

As the police doggedly pursued the trail that was fast unraveling, they arrested three associates of Lonkar, who had conducted a recce of Siddique’s residence and office in Bandra (West), and his son Zeeshan’s office in Bandra East.

The next significant arrest was that of Pune-based Gaurav Vilas Apune, who too had been approached by Subham Lonkar to execute the hit. Apune, 23, had been offered ₹25 lakh, a flat and a vehicle for executing the hit-job, and was even trained to use sophisticated firearms and practiced firing in Karjat.

Police admit they have no clue to the motive for Siddique’s murder. Initially, they claimed that Siddique’s close friendship with actor Salman Khan could somehow be linked to his murder, as Khan has been on the Lawrence Bishnoi gang’s radar for a while. Police were also considering Siddique’s involvement with a high-profile redevelopment project in Bandra East. They have since dropped this angle to the case.

Two months after the murder, police claim the motive will become clear only when they get custody of the two alleged prime conspirators – Subham Lonkar and Zeeshan Akhtar – or the alleged mastermind himself, Anmol Bishnoi.