Baba Siddique murder case: Main shooter, 4 others arrested in UP

In a joint operation with UP STF, a team from the Mumbai Crime Branch, comprising 6 officers and 15 personnel, has apprehended the shooter in the NCP leader Baba Siddiqui murder case. The main accused, Shiva Kumar, along with four others arrested in Uttar Pradesh. They are being brought to Mumbai, said Mumbai Police.

Former Maharashtra minister Siddique, 66, was shot dead on October 12 by three assailants outside his son MLA Zeeshan Siddique's office building in Bandra East, Mumbai. He sustained two bullet injuries on his chest and was rushed to the Lilavati hospital in Mumbai, where he passed away.

The STF and the Mumbai Crime Branch today (Sunday) arrested the shooter Shivkumar and his four protectors from Nanpara in Bahraich district, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order and STF) of UP Police Amitabh Yash told reporters in Lucknow. Yash said that the accused Shivkumar was trying to flee to Nepal. The four others, namely Anurag Kashyap, Gyan Prakash Tripathi, Akash Srivastava and Akhilendra Pratap Singh, have been arrested for sheltering Shivkumar and helping him flee to Nepal, he added.

Mumbai Police had said that jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi's younger brother Anmol, believed to be living in Canada, was allegedly behind the murder, but the motive was not clear. After confirming the whereabouts of the accused persons, a joint operation with the UP STF was conducted, involving 21 police officers and personnel of Mumbai Crime Branch, the Mumbai Police official said. The arrested persons are being brought to Mumbai.

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Notably, accused Dharmaraj Kashyap (19) and Shiv Kumar alias Shiva Gautam (20) are residents of Gandara village in Kaiserganj police station area of Bahraich district, a senior UP police officer had said after Siddique was shot dead.

Kaiserganj Circle Officer (CO) Anil Kumar Singh had told PTI that Shivkumar alias Shiva had gone to Maharashtra to work as a labourer a few years ago and in April this year, he had called his neighbour Dharmaraj Kashyap to work with him. Shiva's father Balkrishna works as a mason as a daily wager.

Meanwhile, arrested accused Shiv Kumar during his interrogation told police that he and Dharamraj Kashyap are from the same village. "I used to work in a scrap (shop) in Pune. My scrap shop and Shubham Lonkar's (shop) were next to each other," Shiv Kumar had told the police, the UP STF said in a statement on Sunday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI)