In the Baba Siddique murder case, the key arrested shooter, Shiv Kumar Gautam, has told the police that, after the murder, cops asked him whether he saw the shooters fleeing the scene of crime.
A day ago, he had told the police that after shooting the NCP leader, he changed his shirt which he had hidden in his pants, returned to the scene of crime, mingled with the crowd to observe the aftermath and then went to Lilavati Hospital to check if Siddique was still alive or just injured.
He has told the police that he returned to the spot after changing his shirt and saw the police searching for the shooters. They asked him whether he had seen the culprits flee. Appearing calm, he told them that he hadn’t.
He told the police that he remained at the scene for 20 minutes and saw his two associates, Dharmaraj Kashyap and Gurmel Singh, being taken into police custody. He reached Lilavati Hospital at around 10pm, then went to Kurla, caught a local train at 10.47 PM to Thane, and reached Pune around 3am on October 13. At 4am, he took an express train from Pune to Jhansi, discarding his mobile en route, which was part of the murder plot.
Meanwhile, the crime branch has revealed that key conspirator Shubham Lonkar practiced firing an AK-47 in the Naxal area of Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. After arriving in Jharkhand on July 29, Shubham, along with other accused Rupesh Mohol and Gaurav Apune, went to Ranchi, and then Bilaspur. The three stayed there for five days, during which Shubham practiced firing for four days.
Further to the crime branch’s discovery that the accused also planned to kill a political leader in Pune, officials said that he is a prominent corporator. Mohol and Apune had been tasked by Shubham to kill him.
