Baba Siddique murder: Third assailant, four others held from U.P.’s Bahraich

In a major breakthrough in Mumbai’s Baba Siddique murder case, U.P. Special Task Force arrested five people from Bahraich district on Sunday. Those arrested included the third assailant Shiv Kumar Gautam, confirmed U.P. additional director general (ADG), law and order, Amitabh Yash here.
Siddique, 66, a former Maharashtra minister and a leader of Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), was shot dead outside his son Zeeshan Siddique’s office in Mumbai’s Neelamnagar area on October 12 by three assailants, including two Bahraich residents. The Lawrence Bishnoi gang had claimed the responsibility for the murder.
In a press note shared with the media, an STF official confirmed those arrested included Shiv Kumar Gautam, Anurag Kashyap, Gyan Prakash Tripathi, Akash Srivastava and Akhilendra Pratap Singh, all residents of Bahraich.
He said they were all arrested from Nanpara, Bahraich, when they were planning to cross over to Nepal through the porous India-Nepal border adjoining Bahraich district. In the incident, one Bahraich resident Dharam Raj Kashyap and one Punjab resident Gurmail Singh were arrested from the spot immediately after the crime while Shiv Kumar Gautam was at large since then.
A senior STF official claimed that Dharamraj, a childhood friend of Shiv Kumar Gautam, had roped in Gautam for executing the murder, and one of his relatives was into scrap business in Pune. He said Dharamraj’s relative who was in touch with Shubham Lonkar was in direct touch with Lawrence Bishnoi through snap chat.
He said Lonkar had promised them ₹10 lakh for the murder, provided firearms and lodging facility in Mumbai to do recce of Baba Siddique. He said the remaining ones were arrested for assisting Gautam to help in crossing over the India-Nepal border and his safe stay in Nepal.