Baba Siddique, a three-time MLA from the Bandra West constituency and a former minister in the Maharashtra government, was shot dead on Saturday night.
Following the news of his murder, Bollywood stars began arriving at Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai. Baba Siddique had such strong ties with the film industry that all the stars would share in his good and bad times with him.
Iftar parties played a significant role in bringing Baba Siddique and Bollywood stars closer together. Every year during Ramadan, Baba Siddique hosted iftar parties attended by actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Sanjay Dutt. At the 2024 Iftar party, when Emraan Hashmi arrived, Baba Siddique and his son Zeeshan Siddique warmly welcomed him and surprised him with a birthday cake.
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Baba Siddique hosted an Iftar party on March 25, just a day after Emraan Hashmi's 45th birthday on March 24. When Emraan arrived at the party, Baba Siddique and Zeeshan had arranged a birthday cake for him. The actor celebrated by cutting the cake with them at the event.
Mumbai Police on Sunday morning shifted the body of slain NCP leader Baba Siddique from Lilavati Hospital to Cooper Hospital, located approximately 8 kilometers away, where doctors will conduct the post-mortem examination. Siddique, a former Maharashtra minister and leader in Ajit Pawar's faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), was shot near Nirmal Nagar in Bandra. He later succumbed to his bullet injuries at Lilavati Hospital late Saturday night.
The body was kept at Lilavati Hospital, where a large number of people, including politicians and celebrities, gathered late into the night to meet Siddique's family and pay their respects. Siddique, a three-time MLA from Bandra West, had joined Ajit Pawar's NCP earlier in February this year after resigning from the Congress.
He was shot by unidentified assailants on Saturday evening. Calling the incident "extremely unfortunate," CM Shinde told the media that two suspects have been arrested, with one still at large. "This is an extremely unfortunate incident. I spoke with the doctors and the police. Two people have been arrested -- the accused are from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The third accused is absconding. We have instructed Mumbai Police to take strict action against those who take law and order into their hands," Shinde told reporters in Thane," CM Shinde told reporters a day earlier.
(With inputs from ANI)
