Baba Siddiq was shot dead by three men near his son Zeeshan’s office in Bandra.
Mumbai:
A picture of Zeeshan Siddique was found on the phone of one of the men who shot dead his father, Baba Siddique, last Saturday. The phone recovered from one of the accused arrested during the investigation into the NCP leader’s murder case had his picture, police sources said.
According to the sources, the picture was shared with the accused by their supervisor through Snapchat. The platform, according to investigators, was used by the shooters and conspirators in the case to send messages to each other.
These messages were deleted at the behest of their handler, who is said to belong to the gang of notorious gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.
Read | The son’s cryptic post after Baba Siddiq’s murder
Siddique was shot dead by three men near his MLA son’s office at Nirmal Nagar in Mumbai’s Bandra area on October 12. The Congress-turned-NCP leader was rushed to the nearby Lilavati Hospital, where he was declared brought dead. The police arrested nine people – including two of the three shooters – in the case so far. Five of them – Nitin Gautam Sapre (32), Sambhaji Kisan Pardhi (44), Pradeep Dattu Thombre (37), Chetan Dilip Pardhi and Ram Fulchand Kanoujia (43) – were arrested yesterday for allegedly providing firearms and logistical support to the shooters . Three accused are still absconding, police said.
Kanoujia, a resident of Panvel in Raigad, told the police that the contract to kill Siddique was initially given to him and Sapre, sources said. He quoted a whopping Rs 1 crore to take up the contract as, he said, he did not want to kill Siddique, the sources added. After Kanaujia and Sapre opted out, the task was given to Dharmraj Kashyap, Gurnail Singh and Shivkumar Gautam, the sources said. Kashyap and Singh are arrested on the day of the crime, while Gautam manages to escape.
The accused told the police that Shubham Lonkar – who was an alleged conspirator and ringleader in the case – chose Kashyap and Gautam for the job because he knew that the people of Uttar Pradesh would not know about Baba Siddiqui’s situation in Maharashtra and that they would have agreed to commit the murder for less money, say police sources.
Policeman with Baba Siddique during the shooting The incident has been stopped
When Grandma Siddique was shot, he had only one police officer – part of his bodyguard – accompanying him, who did not fight back when six rounds were fired at the senior politician. Security has been removed.
The officer told investigators he was unresponsive during the incident because something similar to chili pepper had gotten into his eyes, the sources said.
The three shooters and a co-conspirator had positioned themselves near Mr. Siddique’s waiting car, according to a reenactment of the killing. When the 66-year-old man came out of the office and tried to get into the car, the killers set off some kind of device that enveloped the area in thick smoke. Many thought it was the smoke from the firecrackers, which also masked the noise of the gunshots.
Baba Siddique had “2+1” security, meaning two guards during the day and one at night. When he went to Bandra East on October 12, he had two security guards with him. But before he left his son’s office, around 8:30 p.m., one of the two security guards left the scene.
Link to Lawrence Bishnoi’s gang?
The Mumbai Crime Branch is also probing whether the arrested accused had any connection with the firing at actor Salman Khan’s Galaxy Apartments in Mumbai’s Bandra area in April. Lawrence Bishnoi claimed responsibility for the crime.
A day after Siddique’s murder, a Facebook post claimed that the Bishnoi gang was behind it. Hours later, a 28-year-old man was arrested from Pune. Police said the arrested man, Pravin Lonkar, was a “co-conspirator” and added that they were looking for his brother Shubam Lonkar.
Bishnoi, 31 – in jail since 2015 – has been accused of running a transnational crime syndicate by the National Investigation Agency. His name has been linked to several high-profile murder and extortion cases, including the 2022 killing of popular Punjabi singer Sidhu Mus Wala.
