Gunfire erupted outside Salman Khan’s Bandra residence in April. Among them is one of the suspects for whom the Mumbai Police have been searching after the sensational murder of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique in Mumbai.
Shubham Lonkar was also grilled last week after the shooting outside the residence of actor Salman Khan in April but was released due to lack of evidence.
Police say in their investigation that Shubham Lonkar is emerging as one of the principal conspirators in the murder of Siddique, three-time MLA and a member of the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP.
Sources say Lonkar was present immediately after the firing outside Salman Khan’s Galaxy Apartments residence in Bandra and is believed to be one of the critical members.
One of the Lawrence Bishnoi gangsters was among those picked up for questioning. A few of those who had been interrogated in the case claimed his name.
Sources accused Lonkar of harboring shelter to the suspected firing case accused and let him go as no strong evidence could be gathered against him.
While the police said they had yet to verify the note’s authenticity, the frustration over the failure to crack the case was clear when NDTV spoke to him earlier.
He had then claimed that Lonkar and Pravin, his brother, were two of the main conspirators in the Siddique murder and had recruited two of the shooters – Dharamraj Kashyap and Shiv Kumar Gautam – to the plot.
A note posted on Facebook yesterday in which the Lawrence Bishnoi gang accepted responsibility for Siddique’s murder was reportedly from the account of Shubham Lonkar.
While Pravin was arrested from Pune on Sunday evening, Shubham is still on the run.
The Lonkar brothers’ names came to be used in court by the police on Monday to officially declare, for the first time, that the Bishnoi gang could be behind Siddique’s killing.
