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In a breakthrough, Mumbai Police and Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) on Sunday arrested wanted shooter Shivkumar in Nationalist Congress Party politician Baba Siddique murder case from the northern state along with four others, an official said.
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.
A Mumbai crime branch official, however, said three persons including Shivkumar were arrested.
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.
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.
Shubham Lonkar works for Lawrence Bishnoi. He made me talk to Lawrence Bishnoi's brother Anmol Bishnoi several times through Snap Chat.
"In exchange for the murder of Baba Siddique, I was told that after the murder you will get Rs 10 lakh and every month you will keep getting something or the other. Shubham Lonkar and Mohd. Yasin Akhtar gave us weapons, cartridges, SIM (card) and a mobile phone for the murder.
"After the murder, the three shooters were given new SIM and mobile phones to talk to each other," Shiv Kumar told the police.
"For the last several days, we were doing the recce of Baba Siddique in Mumbai and on the night of October 12, 2024, when we got the right time, we killed Baba Siddique. That day, because of the festival, there were police and a crowd of people due to which two people were caught on the spot and I escaped. I threw the phone on the way and went from Mumbai to Pune," Shiv Kumar said.
From Pune, I reached Bahraich via Jhansi and Lucknow. In between, I kept talking to my colleagues and handlers by asking for anyone's phone. When I talked to Anurag Kashyap using a passenger's phone from the train, he said that Alinder, Gyan Prakash and Aakaash have together made arrangements for you to hide in Nepal.
"That is why I came to Bahraich and was trying to escape to Nepal along with my colleagues. The rest of the colleagues also supported this," Shiv Kumar said, according to the statement issued by the UP STF.
According to Mumbai Police, 18 persons had been arrested in the Siddique murder case until November 7.