A team from the Special Cell of the Delhi Police will be going to Mumbai to assist in the investigations into the murder of Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar) leader Baba Siddique, police sources said on Sunday.
Baba Siddique (66), a former Maharashtra Minister, was waylaid by three men at Kher Nagar in Mumbai’s Bandra area just outside his MLA son Zeeshan Siddique’s office and shot on Saturday night.
“A team of four to five members from the Special Cell will go to Mumbai to investigate and assist the Mumbai Police. The team will look into the gangster angle,” the source said.
Accused from Kaithal
Meanwhile, the Haryana Police said on Sunday that Gurmail Baljit Singh, one of Siddiqui’s alleged three shooters, who is in custody, has a prior criminal history, including a murder case against him.
His family said on Sunday they had disowned him 11 years ago and have called for exemplary punishment for his actions.
Mumbai Police has arrested two of the alleged assailants — Mr. Singh from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh native Dharmaraj Rajesh Kashyap. A third accused, Shiv Kumar, is on the run and efforts are on to nab him, police said.
Giving details of Mr. Singh’s criminal record, Kaithal Superintendent of Police Rajesh Kalia said he was arrested in a murder case in 2019, in which he got bail later.
Another case was registered against him after a mobile phone was recovered from him in jail in 2022, the Haryana Police officer said. He had been booked in another case of beating a youth, he said.
Mr. Singh’s grandmother Phuli Devi told reporters in Kaithal that the family disowned him 11 years ago. “His parents have passed away. The family has disowned him since past eleven years. He is nothing to us now,” she told reporters at her residence in her Narar village.
Same village in U.P.
The other two alleged shooters are from the same village in Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh.
Both of them were from regular families and had no criminal history, U.P. Police said.
Two of the accused, Dharmaraj Kashyap and Shiv Kumar alias Shiva Gautam, are residents of Gandara village in Bahraich.
Superintendent of Police Vrinda Shukla said that both were working at a scrap shop in Pune.
Kaiserganj Circle Officer (CO) Anil Kumar Singh said, “Shiv Kumar had gone to Maharashtra some years back to work as a labourer and had invited Dharmaraj to join him.”
Shiva’s mother, Suman, expressed shock and disbelief at the allegations. While speaking to the media, she described her son as a hardworking and peaceful person.
Dharmaraj’s mother Kusum also said that her son went to Pune to work as a scrap dealer.
“We came to know he was involved in some case only when the police came to our house this morning,” she said.
Published – October 14, 2024 08:55 am IST