Baba Siddique Murder: Mumbai police lists three possible reasons for ex-minister and NCP leader’s killing

Baba Siddique Murder: Mumbai police have launched an investigation into the murder of the former Maharashtra minister and NCP leader Baba Siddique, and are looking at multiple angles and motives behind the crime.

Siddique, a former MLA from Bandra, succumbed to bullet injuries after three people fired upon him on Saturday.

The probe is underway to find motives, including a possible contract killing, business rivalry or threat over a slum rehabilitation project, reported news agency PTI citing officials aware of the development on Sunday, October 13.

Siddique represented the Bandra (West) seat for the NCP party three times in the assembly. The police suspect it to be a pre-planned act, according to a police official quoted in the agency report.

Siddique has been a Congressman since his student days. In February, he quit the grand old party to join Ajit Pawar's NCP. According to the report, he had a Y-category security.

The incident has prompted the opposition to question the law and order situation in the state, assembly elections in the state are expected to be held next month, according to the report.

What happened?

Baba Siddique, aged 66, was a popular figure in Bollywood circles and supplied life-saving medicines to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. he was murdered by three men at Kher Nagar in Mumbai's Bandra area just outside his MLA son Zeeshan Siddique's office and shot at on Saturday night, according to the report.

Siddique was taken to the Lilavati Hospital, where he was declared dead, as per the report.

The police have arrested two of the alleged assailants, identified as Haryana residence Gurmail Baljit Singh, aged 23, and Uttar Pradesh native Dharmaraj Rajesh Kashyap, aged 19, while another accused is on the run and efforts are on to trace him, according to the officials quoted in the agency report.

The accused have been booked under relevant Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections, including for murder, as well as provisions of the Arms Act and the Maharashtra Police Act, they said, quoted the agency.

A team of Delhi Police's Special Cell is set to be dispatched to Mumbai to help out in Siddique's murder probe, said the police sources, reported the agency.

The NCP leader's body was shifted from Lilavati Hospital in Bandra to Cooper Hospital in Vile Parle area around 6 am on Sunday for postmortem, according to an official cited in the report.

According to a doctor in Lilavati Hospital, Siddique was likely dead before being shifted to the medical facility. He was unconscious when he was brought to the hospital on Saturday night after being shot. Doctors tried for almost two hours to save him, but in vain, said the doctor, they said, as per the report.

The shooters open-fired four to five rounds from a 9.9-millimeter pistol, which was recovered by the police. The police found the assailants fired at Siddique when people started bursting firecrackers during a Durga Visarjan procession, according to the officials cited in the report.

According to the report, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Ajit Pawar said that the attack was extremely unfortunate and condemnable. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said the incident is deeply regrettable. “We have directed the police to ensure no one takes the law into their hands under any circumstances. We cannot allow any form of gang war to resurface in our city,” he said, reported the agency.

“Justice must be ensured, and the present Maharashtra Govt must order a thorough and transparent investigation. The culprits must be brought to book at the earliest. Accountability is paramount,” said Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in a post on the social media platform X.

Baba Siddique's murder is the first high-profile political murder in Mumbai in the last three decades, according to the agency report.