The probe into politician Baba Siddique’s murder has shed light on the alleged involvement of the Bishnoi gang. Cops in multiple states are now searching for the two suspects who remain at large, one of them named as an associate of the gangster in police records.

Zeeshan Akhtar’s name has emerged in the ongoing probe into Baba Siddiqui’s murder. He was allegedly the handler of the three shooters – Dharmaraj Kashyap, Gurmail Baljit Singh, and Shivkumar Gautam. Kashyap and Singh were arrested shortly after they shot Siddiqui dead outside his son’s office in Bandra on Saturday night.

The attack was claimed by a member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, citing the politician’s proximity to actor Salman Khan, who has been on their hit list over the 1998 blackbuck case.

Who is Zeeshan Akhtar

Zeeshan Akhtar, a resident of Jalandhar whose real name is Mohammad Yasin Akhtar, was arrested by the Punjab Police in 2022, a police dossier has revealed. He branded himself as the “Zulmi of Crime World” and has nearly two dozen members in his gang.

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He had a Rs 30 lakh extortion case against him in Jalandhar’s Sadar Police Station -among at least seven criminal cases filed against him.

During one of his extortion attempts, Zeeshan had fired two bullets at his target. Two pistols – 0.30 and 0.32 bore – were also mentioned in his police records that he used to carry out the crime.

He was in contact with Anmol Bishnoi, the brother of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, using a “special app”, the records showed. Zeeshan had also recced two Dera followers in Punjab on the instructions of Vikram Brar, a close aide of Lawrence Bishnoi.

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Zeeshan had met Gurmail in Patiala Jail, where he convinced him to join Bishnoi gang, sources said. Gurmail is the only shooter among the three accused with a criminal history.

Zeeshan was not in Mumbai during the murder of Baba Siddique and coordinated the shooting from outside, the sources said, adding that he brought the weapons used for the crime from Punjab to Mumbai.

The police records also mentioned Saurav Mahakal, whose name had emerged in the Sidhu Moosewala murder case. Saurabh, a Pune-based henchman of Anmol Bishnoi, had stayed at Zeeshan’s house several times. Mumbai Police had also questioned him over the threat letters sent to actor Salman Khan’s father Salim Khan.