2 months after Siddique murder, trail runs cold

MUMBAI: At around 9.30 pm on October 12, gunshots rang out in a Mumbai suburb even as a festive procession wended its way on a busy street only a few yards away. Three of the six bullets fired hit their target - former minister and NCP politician, Baba Siddique. He died on the spot.

- Manish Kumar Pathak

Siddique had just emerged from his son, Zeeshan Siddique's office in Khernagar, Bandra East, and was walking towards his car when he was shot at close range.

Two months on and 26 arrests later, police claim they are yet to uncover the motive for the high-profile murder, a hit believed to have been ordered by Anmol Bishnoi, brother of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.

The initial arrests were dramatic - two of the three shooters were apprehended while attempting to flee the crime scene under the cover of darkness. They were Dharmaraj Kashyap and Gurmail Singh. The third, Shiv Kumar Gautam, escaped but was arrested around a month later, from a village near the India-Nepal border.

The interrogation of Kashyap and Singh sent police on a trail that led from Mumbai and Pune, to various cities in North India, from where many of the accused hail, and to Gujarat and Rajasthan, where police made more arrests.