Baba Siddique's killer stayed at scene, monitored events

Shivkumar Gautam, the alleged main shooter in the Baba Siddique murder case, remained at the spot for 20 minutes after the Nationalist Congress Party leader was gunned down on October 12, an official said on Thursday.

IMAGE: Baba Siddique. Photograph: ANI Photo

He had changed his clothes and returned to the spot, the official added.

"He had thrown a bag carrying his shirt, pistol and his Aadhar card at the spot. After the shootout, he found people were in panic and a large number of police had arrived. He also observed if police were asking bystanders for leads on the perpetrators," the official said.

He saw that two of his associates had been nabbed from the spot itself, the official added.

"Gautam took an autorickshaw and went near Lilavati hospital, where Siddique was admitted, to get confirmation on whether he had died. At around 10:47pm, he left for Kurla railway station. While inside the train, he threw his mobile phone somewhere. Efforts are on to trace it," the official said.

The official also said a suspect brought from a border village in Punjab was allowed to go after no role of his surfaced.

During the interrogation of the accused persons, Crime Branch officials found wanted accused Shubham Lonkar was in direct contact with Anmol Bishnoi, brother of the jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.

The Mumbai crime branch also found that Shubham Lonkar had trained with an AK-47 rifle in the dense forests some 50 kilometres from Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur in July, he said.

"Shubham Lonkar was with arrested accused Vilas Apune and Rupesh Mohol when trio had gone to Mahakal. Shubham Lonkar was given training by some people. The training session was going on for four days, and their stay was for five days," the official said.

"We are probing if Shubham Lonkar got weapons training from Naxalites. Lonkar had warned Apune and Mohol that they should not discuss about the training with anybody. We also got information that a corporator from Pune was on the hit list of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang," he said.

According to the official, in Baba Siddique murder conspiracy, arrested accused Anurag Kashyap and Gyan Prakash Tripathi had sent money to scrap dealer Harish Kumar.

"Harish had transferred money into various other accounts and had given his ATM card to shooters to withdraw money," he said.