MUMBAI: The shocking Powai hostage crisis, in which 17 children were held captive under the belief they were filming a “hostage scene” for a web series, was allegedly planned over the course of a month. On Thursday, the children, aged 10 to 15, had their hands tied and mouths taped at a recording studio. What began as a scripted scene for the shoot quickly escalated into a terrifying ordeal when the captor, Rohit Aarrya, brandished a gun and an iron rod, threatening to kill them, according to victim accounts.
Police revealed that Aarrya had come well-prepared, with chemicals-soaked rags placed around the studio and on the floor to potentially start a fire if things went wrong. Motion detectors were set at the main door, and cameras were strategically placed on every floor of the duplex studio to capture the scene.
According to police, Aarrya had convinced 23 children and their parents during auditions that a hostage scene would be filmed on the final day of a five-day shoot. He read out the script to the group of 36 hopefuls, easing their concerns. “Only 17 of the 23 children attended the studio preparations for four days,” an officer explained. These rehearsals helped lull the children—eight boys and nine girls—into a false sense of security when they arrived at 8 a.m. on Thursday for the final day of filming.
But hours into the shoot, some children began to sense something was off and began screaming. This provoked Aarrya into a violent outburst. “He started waving an airgun and an iron rod at us, shouting that he would kill us all,” one of the girls recalled. “It was only then we realized this was no longer fiction.”
When police finally intervened, they found the children bound and gagged, some having gone without food for hours. Aarrya had moved them from room to room, keeping them in a constant state of fear. “We could hear the children screaming during the negotiations over the phone,” an officer said. “He would peek at us from behind sliding glass doors and, at times, pull five children into another room. This went on for nearly two hours.”
At least 15 children were locked in a room on the upper floor of the studio. The building had two floors: the lower one with two rooms, a narrow hallway, and a small hall, and the upper floor with two rooms, a hall, a passage, and a toilet. Authorities also allege that Aarrya carried a petrol canister, using it as another threat against the children. A 75-year-old grandmother, who had accompanied one of the children, was also trapped inside the studio.
Meanwhile, Aarrya’s production assistant, Rohan Aher, was locked in a separate room and threatened at gunpoint. Aher told police he was unaware of Aarrya’s violent plan. “We didn’t know he had weapons or flammable materials,” Aher said. He managed to contact police through a window while Aarrya was occupied in another room, negotiating with officers and the children’s parents.
In a disturbing twist, Aarrya had recorded a video in which he explained he had abandoned thoughts of suicide and was now orchestrating the hostage situation to force the fulfillment of his “demands.” The video was sent via WhatsApp at 1:45 p.m. to two of his acquaintances from the audition. They alerted the police, and a team was on-site by 2:15 p.m. After nearly two hours of tense negotiations, the operation ended with Aarrya’s death by 4 p.m.
