Baba Siddique murder: Shooter waited outside hospital for 30 minutes to confirm death
Baba Siddique murder: Shiv Kumar Gautam, the main accused in the murder of NCP leader Baba Siddique, confessed that after the shooting, he stood outside the Lilavati Hospital, where the former minister was taken, to see if he had died or survived the attack, according to police.
The shooter, who immediately changed his clothes after firing, told police he stayed in the crowd outside the hospital for 30 minutes. He fled as soon as he found out that Siddique's condition was critical.
Siddique, 66, was fatally shot in Mumbai's Bandra on October 12 at 9:11 p.m. He suffered two bullet injuries to the chest and was taken to Lilavati Hospital, where he died.
According to the accused, the first plan was for him to meet his aides, Dharmaraj Kashyap and Gurmail Singh, at the Ujjain railway station, where they would be taken to Vaishno Devi by a member of the Bishnoi gang.
However, the plan failed when Kashyap and Singh were apprehended by the police.
Four friends of the main culprit, whose late-night mobile phone talks prompted suspicions, played an important role in helping Mumbai police track down Gautam, who was detained on Sunday.
The Mumbai Crime Branch and the Uttar Pradesh Police Special Task Force (STF) arrested Gautam, along with Anurag Kashyap, Gyan Prakash Tripathi, Akash Srivastava, and Akhilendra Pratap Singh, near the Nepal border.
According to the authorities, the investigation was initiated by Gautam's four friends' suspicious activities, which included purchasing clothes in various sizes and planning to meet him in a remote forest. They were in constant touch with Gautam via internet calls from mobile phones purchased in Lucknow.
According to investigators, the four aides planned to assist the main accused in escaping the country.
Following the attack, Gautam went to Kurla from the crime scene, took a local train to Thane, and then escaped to Pune, where he reportedly abandoned his mobile phone. He spent about seven days in Pune before travelling to Jhansi and Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. On Sunday, Gautam was found hiding in a village of 10 to 15 hutments around 10 km from Nanpara, a town in Uttar Pradesh.
- With inputs from agencies
