Baba Siddique murder case: Main shooter Shivkumar, four others sent to police custody till Nov 19
Mumbai, Nov 11: 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.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
