MUMBAI: Mumbai police said the captor who held 17 children and two others hostage at a recording studio fired first, prompting retaliatory firing by the police in which he died.Police officials said that they spent nearly two hours trying to negotiate with Rohit Aarrya and gauge his demands, but he refused to cooperate, even after parents of one hostage said she suffered from seizures. An official said Aarrya appeared calm when police spoke to him.
“Regardless of his demands, we couldn’t let him play with people’s lives. He fired first at police. Our team fired back in self-defence. There was no other option,” city police commissioner Deven Bharti said. Other officials iterated the safety of those held captive was top priority, adding the police team’s response was measured and according to protocol.Also read | How Rohit Aarrya pulled off Mumbai hostage siegeThe death prompted calls by legal experts for a magisterial inquiry, as laid down by law, to verify the claim of retaliatory police firing.While Aarrya did not elaborate on his motive in a video released earlier in the day or during police’s attempts at negotiations, it emerged that Aarrya had sat on a hunger strike against former school education minister Deepak Kesarkar of Shiv Sena in 2024 over alleged dues of Rs 2 crore for a state-sanctioned school cleanliness project.Kesarkar said he personally gave him some money as a “gesture of sympathy” even though the school education department maintained Aarrya had collected payment directly from some children. He said Aarrya should have taken up the issue with the department instead of holding kids hostage.Also read | Who was captor Rohit Aarrya? Man behind Mumbai hostage scare sat on hunger strike over ‘Rs 2 crore govt dues’Police said Aarrya had been holding auditions at RA Studio in Powai for the past five days for a web series he was planning. Thursday was the final casting call. Auditions began at 10am and the children — from Navi Mumbai, Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli and other parts of the state — arrived earlier, said a security guard at Mahavir Classik, which housed the studio.Around 1.45pm, an anonymous caller alerted Powai police after parents outside the building began yelling after their children failed to emerge for lunch. Within minutes, the road outside Mahavir Classik was packed with police vehicles, ambulances and fire tenders. “It was a challenging operation,” said DCP Datta Nalawde.Officers broke through a bathroom grille and stormed the studio. Police said Aarrya fired first with an air gun; officers returned fire, hitting him in the chest. He was rushed to hospital where doctors declared him dead.(With inputs from Bella Jaisinghani, Richa Pinto & S Ahmed Ali)
