Maharashtra police’s crime branch has arrested two men in their 20s from a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district for their suspected involvement in the murder of NCP leader and former minister Baba Siddiqui.

Harish Kumar Balakram, 23, and Anurag Kumar, 25, were apprehended from Gandara village with the help of Uttar Pradesh police on Monday and brought to Mumbai on Tuesday morning.

Both Harish and Anurag are related to Dharmaraj Rajesh Kashyap, 19, who had earlier been arrested in connection with the case. Harish is Dharmaraj’s cousin while Anurag is his brother.

The other two persons arrested in the case so far are Haryana resident Gurmail Baljit Singh, 23, and Pravin Lonkar from Pune.

While Dharmaraj and Gurmail are alleged shooters, Pravin has been identified as a “co-conspirator”.

Pravin is accused of “enlisting” two of the three alleged shooters who opened fire on Siddiqui. According to the police, Pravin’s brother Shubham, who is yet to be arrested, is allegedly associated with jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. The prosecution has claimed Shubham and other wanted accused had conspired in the shooting and supplied arms to the gunmen who attacked the NCP (Ajit Pawar faction) leader.

Another suspected shooter, Shivkumar Gautam, who hails from Bahraich, is on the run.

Police sources said Harish had gone to Pune two years ago and started working as a scrap dealer. However, he got injured in a road accident and came back to his village for treatment.

“Dharmaraj and Shivkumar had gone to Pune to work in Harish’s scrap workshop. We are trying to find out why they had shifted to Mumbai a few months ago. Harish had rented a house for them in Mumbai,” said a police officer in Lucknow on the condition of anonymity.

“We have reasons to believe that Shivkumar was in touch with the gangsters. He had recently written in an Instagram post ‘Yaar tera gangster hai jaani (Your friend is a gangster)’,” the officer added.

Refusing to divulge any details about the arrests, Ramanand Kushwaha, additional superintendent of police of Bahraich, said: “Harish had met with an accident a few months ago and was living in Gandara village from where Shivkumar and Dharmaraj belong. We have interrogated him but can’t reveal specific information we gathered from him.”

Anurag was arrested last year for molesting a girl and had spent a few months in jail. He was granted bail recently.

Police sources claimed that three persons from Gandara village had received ₹50,000 each recently and they were probing whether it was linked to the murder in any way.

Additional reporting by PTI