Mumbai, Oct 25 (IANS): A Mumbai Court has extended the police custody of nine accused in the sensational killing of Nationalist Congress Party leader Baba Ziauddin Siddique by a day till October 26.
The nine were produced before the Esplanade Court Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate V. R. Patil when their collective first remand ended on Friday.
The prosecutors sought an extension of their police custody by three days, but the court declined and allowed one day’s additional remand till Saturday when they will be brought again.
The accused: Gurnail B. Singh (23); Dharmaraj Kashyap (21); Harish Nisad (26); Pravin Lonkar (30); Nitin G. Sapre (32); Sambhaji K. Pardhi (44); Pradeep Dattu Thombre (37); Chetan D. Pardhi and Ram Fulchand Kanojiya (43).
They were arrested at different times in several places including Mumbai, Pune, Raigad, Thane, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, among others.
All of them have been booked for the sensational gunning down of Siddique (66) during Dussehra festivities on October 12, near the office of his ex-Congress MLA son Zeeshan Siddique sparking a huge political furore.
They are allegedly linked with the ruthless Lawrence Bishnoi gang which later claimed responsibility for killing Siddique.
Police have alleged that the Singh of Haryana and Kashyap of UP plus absconder Shivkumar Gautam fired at Siddique.
Lonkar, along with his fugitive brother Shubham have links with the gang, and along with the other accused, had hatched the criminal conspiracy to eliminate Siddique, arranged for the firearms, lodging and boarding, and getaway vehicles while Nisad organized the finances for the meticulous operation.
Gautam, who was the main sharpshooter plus Shubham Lonkar and Mohammed Zeeshan Akhtar, are wanted for the crime with multiple police teams hot on their trail in Maharashtra and other places, and the police have issued a look-out circular for them.
A couple of weeks after Siddique’s killing, his son Zeeshan quit the Congress and joined ruling ally NCP headed by Ajit Pawar who rewarded him with an Assembly ticket for Bandra East constituency.