MUMBAI: Police rescue over 17 children held hostage inside flat by a man in Mumbai’s Powai area, nab accused.
Officials described him as mentally unstable and are handling the situation.”All the children are safe,” said joint commissioner of police Satyanarayan.
The dramatic situation unfolded at R A Studio near the L&T building over an hour on Thursday afternoon.
The children, boys and girls around 15 years old, had been called for an `audition’, as per the preliminary information.
Mumbai Police said a man identified as Rohit Arya has taken several children hostage in Powai and, in a video, demanded to speak to specific people — warning he would set the place on fire and harm himself and the children if prevented.
According to PTI, police rescued over 20 children held hostage inside flat.
“All children have been safely rescued from the spot. The man, Rohit Arya has been detained by the Police. The Police are talking to him and trying to find out why he took such a step and if actually is mentally unstable,” Mumbai police said in a statement.
In the video, the man said he had chosen hostage-taking instead of suicide in order to force conversations with unspecified people. “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 released before his arrest.
Agencies