MUMBAI: The Mumbai police have categorically ruled out the involvement of a “builder lobby” in the October 2024 murder of former Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Baba Siddique. In an affidavit filed before the Bombay High Court recently, police said they found the allegation was based on “mere suspicion and conjecture” without any concrete evidence.
Siddique, 66, was shot dead by three assailants outside his son and former MLA Zeeshan’s office in Bandra east on the night of October 12, 2024.
In its affidavit before the court, police said they found no evidence to link any builder to the murder. They said the investigation had established that the murder was committed by the organised crime syndicate headed by Anmol Bishnoi to allegedly establish terror, and gain supremacy and pecuniary benefits.
The police’s affidavit was filed in response to a petition filed by Siddique’s widow, Shehzeen Siddique, seeking an independent, impartial and court-monitored investigation into her husband’s murder.
In her petition, filed through advocate Trivankumar Karnani, Shehzeen claimed the police investigation was “incomplete and totally misleading”, adding that they had not probed the possibility of a powerful builders’ lobby being behind the crime.
She said the investigating officers had attempted to spare these influential personalities “with an ulterior motive or on their instructions”. She demanded to know the names of the persons involved, alleging that they were a lobby of builders interested in slum rehabilitation projects between Bandra and Andheri, including the areas in the constituencies of Baba and Zeeshan Siddique.
However, in the affidavit, assistant police commissioner (CID) Kishorkumar Shinde denied Shehzeen’s allegations, and said the investigation has been conducted professionally and meticulously after following due process of law. He said the charge-sheet had been filed based on concrete evidence, witness statements and technical evidence.
The affidavit also said that attempts to get Anmol Bishnoi extradited from the United States is proof of the “relentless effort” that the investigating officers have discharged their duties professionally and in accordance with the law.
It concluded that Shehzeen’s allegations against the police are “factually incorrect, concocted and made with the ulterior intention to malign the image of the police machinery in the eyes of the court”.
“Shehzeen Siddique, by filing the petition, is trying to pressurise all the police officials to investigate the matter as per her whims and wishes with her unknown ulterior motives,” it said.