'Used crackers, acted sweet': Mumbai hostage witness reveal how Rohit Arya fooled them

The woman was accompanying her granddaughter to the audition on pretext of which 17 children were held hostage for several hours in Mumbai's Powai.

A senior citizen witnessed the hostage crisis in Mumbai first hand after she was stranded in the Powai studio with her granddaughter who she had accompanied for the auditions on pretext of which some 17 children were held hostage by a man named Rohit Arya.

Rohit Arya (L) who held the children hostage and Mangala Patankar (R) who was accompanying her granddaughter to the auditions.

While police and fire brigade were working outside to evacuate the children safely, the old woman, identified as Mangala Patankar, reportedly played a key role in helping the rescue of the children held captive by 50-year-old Arya at Powai's RA Studio in Mahavir Classic, a commercial-cum-residential complex. She also sustained head injuries from glass shards and is currently undergoing treatment at a hospital.

The hostage ordeal

From the hospital bed, Patankar narrated the hostage crisis and said that Arya left some children with her while he took the rest upstairs.

“After a bit, he came down again and asked me to come up too with the rest of the kids,” she said, adding that upon going upstairs, she kids hadn't been taught anything.

“He had put black curtains on the window. He seemed to have planned it in advance. He made 4 of the kids call their parents and demanded a ₹1 crore ransom from each,” she said.

She said Arya kept saying he wanted ₹4 crore right now and threatened the hostages that he had kept a bomb in the building.

‘Arya was being sweet’

However, she said, Arya was being sweet throughout, but also did a lot of drama. “He burst Diwali firecrackers and told us some firing is going on outside so we didn't step out of the building,” she said.

“When I got a call saying that such a hostage scare is happening outside, I told them that the kids are sitting safely with me,” Patankar said adding that she suspected another employee of the institute was to be a part of his plan as she did not appear to be scared.

Patankar said she ensured the safety of the children, especially girls and also sent parents pictures of their kids who were anxiously waiting outside.

Arya reportedly took 17 children hostage after calling them for an audition for a web series and later posted a video saying that he had certain demands as Maharashtra education department owed him ₹2 crore. The 3.5-hour-long hostage crisis ended dramatically after the police rescued the children by climbing the duct pipe. Another cop stormed the studio from the bathroom window and shot him dead as he allegedly tried to harm a child.