Ganesh Kendale
MUMBAI: In a night-long operation, Mumbai crime branch arrested five suspected members of the Maharashtra module of Lawrence Bishnoi’s gang allegedly involved in the killing of NCP politician Baba Siddique, taking the total arrests to nine.
Three of them — Sambhaji Parthi (44), Pradeep Thombre (37), Chetan Pardhi (27) — are from Ambernath.
Nitin Sapre (32) was picked up from Dombivli and Ramphoolchand Kanojia (43) from Panvel.Police said Sapre and Kanojia were tasked with the hit on Siddique.
The plan was later dropped — sources said they demanded Rs 50 lakh-Rs 1 crore as supari, and Sapre developed cold feet on finding out who the target was.
An official said Sapre claimed that on finding out how influential Siddique was, “he got scared and understood the consequences and convinced Kanojia to stay away”.
The handlers then decided to use the north India module for the job and chose Gurmail Singh, Shivkumar Gautam and Dharmaraj Kashyap,” said the official. While Singh and Kashyap carried out the hit and were caught the same night a little distance, Gautam is on the run.
The five from the Maharashtra module are suspected of supplying weapons, including Turkish, Australian and locally made pistols, to the shooters. They also arranged logistics, accommodation and financial support for the killing, said a senior crime branch official. “When Kashyap and Gautam arrived in Karjat, their accommodation was arranged by these arrested accused in mid-Aug.
This group had provided logistics and money to the shooters. In mid-Sept, these accused provided three weapons, which have been seized, to the killers. We are also probing if the five arrested accused had visited Mumbai before Siddique’s killing,” said the officer. All five were produced before a court Friday evening and remanded in police custody till Oct 25.
Constable guarding Siddique suspended for security lapse
Mumbai police Friday suspended constable Shyam Sonawane who was on duty guarding Baba Siddique when he was shot dad. Sonawane, from the protection branch, failed to respond when bullets were fired at Siddique.
Sonawane told cops that the accused used pepper spray and burst crackers and hence, he became confused. “He said he could not see due to the smoke, which hindered him from taking defensive action,” said a cop.
