Jalandhar man accused of NCP leader's murder held in Canada, says Maharashtra minister
Zeeshan Akhtar, an alleged key conspirator in the murder of NCP leader Baba Siddique, has been 'arrested' in Canada, Maharashtra minister of state for home, Yogesh Kadam said on Wednesday. Akhtar (22) was held in a fake passport case.
'Zeeshan, who was involved in the Baba Siddiqui murder case, has been arrested in Canada. We have initiated the process to bring him back to India. We will interrogate him further (after bringing him back),' Kadam told the media.
Punjab Police had named Akhtar, 22, as a key conspirator behind the grenade attack on senior BJP leader and former state minister Manoranjan Kalia's house in the wee hours on April 7. No one was injured in the attack.
Punjab Police special director general of police Arpit Shukla had named Akhtar as the key accused.
He was also booked for a grenade attack on YouTuber Rozer Sandhu's house on March 16. However, the grenade didn't explode.
As per Mumbai police, jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi's brother Anmol Bishnoi had given a contract to Zeeshan Akhtar and Shubham Lonkar to carry out the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader's murder. Siddique, a former Maharashtra minister, was shot dead in Bandra area on October 12, 2024. Police have arrested at least 25 persons in the case so far.
The crime branch of the Mumbai police began an investigation into a video of Zeeshan Akhtar, a prime accused in the murder of Nationalist Congress Party leader Baba Siddique in February, in which he claimed to have secured asylum in a foreign country with the help of Pakistani gangster Shehzad Bhatti.
Akhtar, an alleged key conspirator in the Siddique murder, claimed in the video that Bhatti had helped him escape from India after the Mumbai Police launched a manhunt for him. He said that Bhatti, whom he called his 'elder brother' in the video, had helped him secure asylum in an unknown country, outside Asia. Police confirmed that the person seen in the video, which was circulated widely online, is indeed Zeeshan Akhtar but were investigating other details.
Siddique was shot dead on a busy street in Bandra East on October 12 last year. There were three shooters present but it was Shiv Kumar Gautam, henchman of gangster Anmol Bishnoi, brother of incarcerated gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, who had fired the shots that killed Siddique.
Police confirmed that the person seen in the video is Akhtar but added that they would have to verify its authenticity and the time at which it was recorded. 'It seems that someone purposely circulated the video on social media. We have been trying to find out where it originated,' said a senior police officer.
Akhtar and Gurmail Singh, one of the three shooters recruited to kill Siddique, were one-time jail-mates in Jalandhar, in Punjab. Akhtar was moved to another jail in Jalandhar but not before he had discussed the Siddique murder with Gurmail Singh and told him he would soon have a task for him. 'We believe Zeeshan is still in India and that someone released that video of him. We are investigating the authenticity of this video, said the police official.
The video of Akhtar has been posted on Shehzad Bhatti's social media accounts, which also feature a 19-second video of him talking with Lawrence Bishnoi. This video, released is June 2024, also went circulated widely on social media.
Apart from Akhtar, a native of Jalandhar, police have identified Subham Lonkar, who ran a dairy in Pune, as the other key conspirator, who executed the plan allegedly hatched by Anmol Bishnoi. Both Akhtar and Lonkar are considered close confidants of Anmol Bishnoi and were allegedly tasked with Siddique's murder in May last year.
Soon after planning and arranging for the shooters and their accommodation in Mumbai, both of them disappeared from their respective last-known addresses around a month before the high-profile murder took place. A senior police officer said Akhtar and Lonkar were both last traced to Nainital in Uttarakhand in September 2024.
Meanwhile, the Mumbai Crime Branch filed a 4,590-page chargesheet in the Siddique murder case on Monday. The chargesheet names 26 individuals arrested in connection with the murder and identified three wanted suspects, including Anmol Bishnoi, Zeeshan Akhtar, alias Mohammed Yasin Akhtar, and Shubham Lonkar. Police described the three of them as key conspirators in the high-profile killing. Investigators also alleged that Anmol Bishnoi, the leader of an organised crime syndicate, orchestrated the murder 'to establish supremacy in Mumbai.'
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