Baba Siddique murder: Shivkumar Gautam changed clothes after firing at NCP leader, came back to spot, say cops

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Shivkumar Gautam, the alleged main shooter in the Baba Siddique murder case, remained at the spot for 20 minutes after the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader was gunned down on October 12, news agency PTI stated, quoting a Mumbai Police officer, on Thursday.

He had changed his clothes and returned to the spot, the officer quoted by PTI added.

"Gautam 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 officer said.

The accused saw that two of his associates had been nabbed from the spot itself, the officer added.

"Gautam took an autorickshaw and went near Lilavati Hospital, where Siddique was admitted, to get confirmation on whether he had died. At 10.47 pm, he left for Kurla railway station. Inside the train, he threw his mobile phone somewhere. The efforts to trace it are on," the officer said, adding, that 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, Crime Branch officers found that Shubham Lonkar, who is in the run, was in direct contact with Anmol Bishnoi, the brother of the jailed gangster Lawrence.

The Mumbai crime branch also found that 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 officer 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 officer, in Baba Siddique murder conspiracy, two of the 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.

(With PTI inputs)