What we know so far about the public murder of an Indian politician

The murder of a politician in a busy neighborhood in the Indian city of Mumbai has sent shockwaves across the country.

Baba Ziauddin Siddique, 66, was shot dead near his car on Saturday evening as he left his son’s office. He later died in hospital.

The killing of Siddique, an influential politician who was part of the coalition government in Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, has triggered a political blame game.

The motive for the murder is not yet clear, but for many it brings back memories of the 1990s, when politicians and film stars were often targeted by Mumbai’s underworld.

Police have arrested three people so far and say the investigation is ongoing. According to local media reports, the arrested men are part of a notorious gang whose leader is currently in prison.

Siddique was born in the eastern state of Bihar and migrated to Mumbai at the age of five with his father, a watchmaker.

He began his political career in the 1980s as a student leader of the Congress Party and soon headed its youth wing in Mumbai. He then entered local politics before being elected to the state legislature three consecutive times and becoming minister in 2004 for about four years.

In February, he left the Congress to join the Nationalist Congress Party, which currently governs the state along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena.

Apart from his political activities, Siddique also made headlines for his glitzy Iftar parties held during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which were attended by top Bollywood stars.

At his Iftar party in 2013, superstars Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan ended their much-talked-about argument with a hug – which “made the annual Siddique affair a must-see event in the city’s social calendar,” according to Midday newspaper wrote in 2016.

The politician was shot dead outside his son’s office as he was getting into his car in the busy Bandra area.

According to police, three gunmen fired six to seven shots, hitting Siddique’s stomach and chest and fled the scene. A passerby was also injured when a stray bullet hit his leg.

Investigators said they recovered two pistols and 28 live rounds of ammunition from the arrested men.

Siddique had three police stations – local media reported that his safety was guaranteed upgraded days ago – but the suspects supposedly distracted them by setting off a “smoke firecracker.”

The police were granted custody of the arrested men for a week. They say they are on the lookout for their accomplices.

“We have formed 15 teams and investigations are underway to find out who provided logistical support to the shooters,” said senior police officer Datta Nalawade.

Although the police have not confirmed this, several reports citing sources have linked the arrested men to the notorious Bishnoi gang. The gang’s leader, Lawrence Bishnoi, is an accused in several cases and is currently in a maximum security prison in the state of Gujarat.

A few hours after the shooting, a man claiming to be a member of the gang posted on Facebook that they were behind Siddique’s murder. Police have not yet confirmed the authenticity of the post.

Although Bishnoi has been in prison since 2015, he often makes headlines. Many social media accounts claiming to belong to him or his associates have often posted his selfies from prison. In 2022, he even gave interviews to a television station, which sparked an investigation.

Many of the reports about Bishnoi are based on police sources and it is not clear how he runs the gang’s operations in prison.

The name of the gang appeared in connection with this murder by Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moosewala in 2022.

In April, police arrested two gang members for allegedly shooting outside actor Salman Khan’s apartment in Mumbai.

On Monday, Canadian police also said they believed the Bishnoi group did this Connections to Indian government agents who used the gang to attack Sikh separatists in their territory. India has not officially responded to the police claims.

Siddique’s murder is the first major assassination attempt on a politician in Mumbai since the 1990s, when high-profile killings of politicians, businessmen and Bollywood stars by criminal gangs in the Mumbai underworld were common.

According to local media reports, he received a death threat two weeks ago, which led to his security being increased.

His murder within days has left the state government reeling and Maharashtra will soon hold assembly elections.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge called the killing “a complete failure of law and order in Maharashtra”, and Delhi’s former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the incident had shocked not just the people of Maharashtra “but the entire country”.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has defended his government.

“[The culprits] will not be spared no matter who they are, be it the Bishnoi gang or any underworld gang…The safety of those who receive threats is the responsibility of the state government and it will fulfill its responsibility,” he said.

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