Police in Mumbai shot dead a 50-year-old man and freed 18 people, 17 of them children, whom he had allegedly taken hostage at a studio in Powai Thursday afternoon.
The incident took place at Ra Studio in Powai’s Mahavir Classik building. Police said the children, aged between 10 and 12 years, had come to the studio from different parts of Maharashtra for an audition when a man, later identified as Rohit Arya, allegedly locked them inside and threatened to harm them and himself.
Arya later died after being injured in the chest during a police crossfire. The senior citizen was also hurt in the exchange and was rushed to Balasaheb Thackeray Trauma Hospital for treatment, as per reports.
Mumbai Police teams, including senior officers and a quick response unit, rushed to the spot after receiving information about the standoff. “All children have been safely rescued from the spot,” police said in a statement
According to police, Arya had released a video in which he demanded to speak to certain individuals and warned that he would harm himself and the children and “set everything on fire” if prevented.
The standoff ended after a police inspector forced entry into the studio and seized an airgun and some chemical from Arya’s possession, Powai police said.
Joint Commissioner of Police (L&O) Satyanarayan Chaudhary said, “Prima facie, the motive behind the hostage act appears to be related to some pending work-related dues.”
Police said the incident was reported around 1.45 pm, when a distress call from the studio prompted teams from Powai and Sakinaka police stations to rush to the spot.
The children, aged between 13 and 17 years, had reportedly travelled from different parts of Maharashtra to attend an audition for an ad shoot being held at the studio.
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.
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.