NCP leader Baba Siddique shot dead in Mumbai, two arrested

Former Maharashtra minister and NCP leader Baba Siddique, who was an influential person in political and social circles, was shot dead on Saturday night in front of his son’s office, police said.

According to police, of the three men involved in the killing of the 66-year-old politician at around 930 pm last night, two have been arrested while the third suspect is at large.

Six bullets were fired at him. He was rushed to Lilavati Hospital but he succumbed to his injuries.
A close aide of Siddique was also injured in the shooting, media reports said.

The two suspects arrested in the killing of Siddique have claimed they belong to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, sources told NDTV.

While the gang is yet to admit responsibility for the murder, the Mumbai Police has identified the accused as Gurmail Singh and Dharamraj Kashyap.

The body of Baba Siddique was shifted from Lilavati Hospital to Cooper Hospital around 6am on Sunday for postmortem, reported Hindustan Times.

Baba Ziauddin Siddique was a former Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) in Maharashtra for the Bandra West constituency. He was the MLA for three consecutive terms in 1999, 2004 and 2009, and had also served as Minister of State for Food & Civil Supplies (FDA) and Labour under Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh between 2004 and 2008.

Siddique had also served as a Municipal Corporator earlier for two consecutive terms between 1992 and 1997.

He was the Chairperson & Senior Vice President of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee & Parliamentary Board of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee. However, on Feb 8 this year he resigned from the primary membership of the Congress and later joined the Nationalist Congress Party led by Ajit Pawar.

Siddique was known for brokering peace between feuding Bollywood superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan in 2013.