Baba Siddique murder: Main shooter Shivkumar sent to custody till Nov 19

A court here on Monday remanded in police custody till November 19 alleged main shooter Shivkumar Gautam and four others arrested in NCP politician Baba Siddique's murder case. The UP special task force and the Mumbai Crime Branch on Sunday arrested alleged shooter Shivkumar (20) and four others from Nanpara in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich district.  The four other accused, Anurag Kashyap, Gyan Prakash Tripathi, Akash Srivastava and Akhilendra Pratap Singh, were arrested for sheltering Shivkumar and helping him flee to Nepal. The crime branch produced the accused before additional chief judicial magistrate Vinod Patil. Seeking their remand, police told court it wanted to probe the financial aspects of the case as well as how the shooter procured arms used in the crime.  Accused Anurag Kashyap provided Shivkumar Rs 2 lakh and there was need to probe the source of this money, police told court. Shivkumar was in touch with wanted accused Shubham Lonkar and, therefore, his custody was needed to know where the latter was, police said. Advocate Amit Mishra, appearing for the accused, said Shivkumar was ready to cooperate in the investigation and he could be remanded in police custody.  However, Mishra said, the other four should be remanded for a minimum period as no specific role has been assigned to them in the crime. They are just accused of providing Shivkumar shelter and helping in his attempt to flee, Mishra argued in court. After hearing both sides, the court remanded five accused in police custody till November 19.  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.  Police on Sunday said Shivkumar Gautam was a resident of Gandara village in Kaiserganj police station area of Bahraich district. He had gone to Maharashtra to work as a labourer a few years ago, and in April this year, he had called his neighbour accused Dharmaraj Kashyap to work with him.  Shivkumar's father, Balkrishna, is a mason and works as a daily wager. According to UP STF, arrested accused Shiv Kumar during his interrogation told them 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 had said in a statement on Sunday.  According to STF, Shivkumar told them Shubham Lonkar works for Lawrence Bishnoi and that he (Lonkar) had made him (Shivkumar) talk to Lawrence Bishnoi's brother Anmol Bishnoi several times through Snap Chat. Shivkumar has said he was to get Rs 10 lakh after the murder of Siddique as well as "something or the other" every month, the STF informed.

 

Police have so far arrested 23 accused in connection with the murder.