Baba Siddique murder: The police said the accused worked as a scrap dealer in Pune and was part of the conspiracy.
The Mumbai Crime Branch has arrested the fourth accused in the murder of NCP leader Baba Siddique.
The accused, identified as 23-year-old Harishkumar Balakram, was arrested from UP’s Bahraich for allegedly supplying money and arranging logistics for the sensational murder.
“In connection with Baba Siddiqui’s murder case, Harishkumar Balakram (23), a resident of Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, has been apprehended,” the Mumbai Crime Branch said on Tuesday.
The police said Balakram worked as a scrap dealer in Pune and he was part of the conspiracy to murder Baba Siddique.
“He was working as a scrap dealer in Pune. He was part of the conspiracy, he supplied money and other logistics. Further investigation is underway,” it added.
Two of the three accused — Dharmaraj and Shivprasad Gautam — used to work in Balakram’s scrap shop.
Harish had bought new mobile phones for Shivprasad and Dharmaraj ahead of the crime.
The police said the fourth accused was fully aware of the crime.
Lucknow:
Uttar Pradesh native Shiv Kumar Gautam, an absconding suspect in politician Baba Siddique’s killing n Mumbai, had taken to posting online content in recent months, flaunting his “gangster” status.”Yaar tera gangster hai jaani (your friend is a gangster)” Gautam had captioned his photo post on his Instagram account on July 24. The photo showed him on a motorcycle as a Haryanvi song played in the background
Gautam hails from Gandara village in Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh, where locals and police said he had no criminal history. They added that he had gone to work at a scrap shop in Maharashtra’s Pune.
Another post of his on July 8 was captioned “Sharif baap hai # (expletives) hum nahin”. On May 26, he posted a brief video of a city skyline along with background music from “KGF”, a film about a mercenary, with its dialogue “powerful people make places powerful”. Interestingly, the number of Gautam’s followers on Instagram has nearly doubled almost overnight — from 299 on Sunday to 504 on Monday.
Suman told the media that her son had last visited her in Gandara during Holi. She had claimed that after the visit, Gautam left for Pune in the first week of April.
Gautam’s Instagram profile showed his last post on the social media platform was on August 4, when he had posed for a photo on a motorcycle. A post on April 10 showed him working at a warehouse, packing orders. The video was captioned “yeh kam karte hain hum order ready karne ka”. His other posts largely carried cryptic messages about heartbreak while one was about religious pride.