India police rescue 17 children taken hostage
Police in Mumbai say they have safely rescued 17 children and two adults from a man who claimed to have taken them hostage at an acting school where the children had gathered for an audition.
The official said officers first tried to negotiate with the hostage-taker but as he was "adamant", they "used force" to enter the building in the busy Powai neighbourhood.
Officers entered the studio through the bathroom window and later said they had found an airgun and an unspecified chemical.
The suspect, named by police as Rohit Arya, was shot during the rescue operation and later died in hospital, police said.
The incident caused widespread panic and parents of the children and local residents gathered outside the building.
The dramatic confrontation took place inside a small film studio called RA Studios, where Arya had lured a group of children for what he described as an "audition". Police say the children, all between the ages of 8 and 14, were held hostage for about two hours before being rescued unharmed.
Police said a team from Powai Police Station received a distress call around 1:45 pm and arrived swiftly at the scene. The negotiations began immediately, but he refused to release the children. When he threatened to harm them, the police team conducted a forced entry through the bathroom and secured all 17 children safely.
Before the incident, Arya had released a video in which he said he chose hostage-taking "instead of dying by suicide".
"I am Rohit Arya. Instead of dying by suicide, I have made a plan and am holding some children hostage here," he said, listing what he described as "simple demands, moral demands, ethical demands, and a few questions." He warned that "the slightest wrong move from you will trigger me" and threatened to set the place on fire, adding that he did not seek money and was "not a terrorist".
"I want simple conversations, and that's why I've taken these children hostage. I've held them hostage as part of a plan. If I live, I'll do it; if I die, someone else will, but it will definitely happen because the slightest wrong move from you will trigger me to set this whole place on fire and die in it," Arya said in the video.
Police have since recovered the air gun and some chemical containers from the scene, which investigators believe he used to threaten officers. The children were invited for a web series audition at RA Studios, located on the ground floor of a residential building in Powai.
He had previously alleged that the department owed him payment for a sanitation campaign called the PLC Sanitation Monitor Project, launched under the Chief Minister's My School, Beautiful School campaign. Arya claimed the project, part of his 'Let's Change' campaign begun in 2013, aimed to make schoolchildren "ambassadors of cleanliness".
He alleged that the department had sanctioned Rs 2 crore for his work but had not paid him since January 2024. Arya had gone on hunger strike twice that year and accused officials of sidelining him from the programme despite personal assurances from then Education Minister Deepak Kesarkar.
According to Arya, Kesarkar had issued him two cheques of Rs 7 lakh and Rs 8 lakh as personal assistance, promising more later -- a promise Arya claimed was never fulfilled.
Maharashtra Education Secretary Ranjit Singh Deol, however, clarified there was no agreement to pay Rohit Arya Rs 2 crore for the project. "He volunteered for the work and was awarded a certificate for his work. Subsequently, he was in discussions with the government to implement the 'My Shala, Sundar Shala' programme, but that failed to materialise. The Maharashtra government does not owe Rohit Arya any dues," Deol said.
Source: BBC, NDTV