Mumbai: Baba Siddique, a former Maharashtra minister and a member of the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), was shot at in Mumbai’s Bandra on Saturday (October 12) evening. He was rushed to the Lilawati Hospital, where he was declared dead.
Siddique, a three-time MLA from Bandra (West), was at the office of his son Zeeshan, an MLA from Bandra (East), where he was shot at.
He was hit by three bullets from close range, sources in the NCP told The Wire.
Two people out of the three who were allegedly involved in the killing have been apprehended, sources have claimed.
Just a week ago, another leader of the NCP’s Ajit Pawar faction, Sachin Kurmi, was stabbed to death in Byculla, Mumbai.
Siddique, who spent close to five decades with the Congress, was one of the close associates of late actor and Congress leader Sunil Dutt. After Dutt’s passing, Siddique continued to work closely with the former’s daughter Priya Dutt, a former Congress MP.
In February, however, Siddique quit the Congress. His son was later expelled from the Congress in August.
At the time of quitting the Congress, Siddique had written on his social media: “I joined the Indian National Congress party as a young teenager and it has been a significant journey lasting 48 years. Today I resign from the primary membership of the Indian National Congress Party with immediate effect. There’s a lot I would have liked to express but as they say some things are better left unsaid. I thank everyone who has been a part of this journey.”
Many in the Congress had connected his decision to quit the party to the pending cases against him.
Between 2017 and 2018, the Enforcement Directorate had accused him and his firm of laundering money worth Rs 500 crore. It carried out raids on many of his properties.
Reacting to Siddique’s killing, former Maharashtra home minister and currently an MLA from the Sharad Pawar NCP faction, Anil Deshmukh said the incident was “very shocking and raises serious questions about law and order in the state”.
“If the ruling leaders are not safe in Maharashtra, think what will be the condition of common people,” he said on X.
