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When police negotiators reasoned with former Maharashtra minister Deepak Kesarkar to take a phone call from Rohit Arya, the man holding 17 children and two adults hostage inside a Powai studio, he refused. “I didn’t think it was so serious,” Kesarkar would later admit, after the three-hour ordeal ended with Arya shot dead and the hostages rescued unharmed. According to officials, Arya, a 35-year-old project coordinator who once worked on the state’s “Majhi Shala, Sundar Shala” school-beautification scheme, had demanded to speak directly to Kesarkar, who belongs to Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, during the standoff. The former minister, who oversaw the education portfolio at the time Arya’s projects were sanctioned, was his alleged point of grievance. But Kesarkar, informed of the situation over the phone by police, declined to engage. “I told them the matter related to the education department and not me personally,” he told Indian Express, adding that he had no idea the situation would spiral into a crisis. Inside the Powai studio, the scene was growing tense. Arya had doused parts of the room with a petrol-rubber mixture, installed motion sensors, and threatened to ignite the place if police advanced. In his video statements, that were later circulated online, he claimed he wasn’t a terrorist, only a man “driven to the edge” by unpaid dues for government work. “Instead of dying by suicide, I made a plan,” he said, asserting that he wanted justice, not money. The Mumbai Police tried to buy time. Negotiators spoke to Arya through the studio’s glass doors, assuring him his concerns would be heard if he released the children. He refused, insisting that only Kesarkar could resolve his grievances. With the minister declining the call, officials prepared to intervene. As per The Indian Express, a SWAT team entered through a bathroom window, discovered Arya had wired the room with improvised triggers, and waited for an opening. When he allegedly aimed his weapon toward officers, they fired. The hostages, terrified but physically unharmed, were led out as Arya was rushed to a hospital, where he was declared dead. Speaking to India Today later, Kesarkar reiterated that while he empathised with Arya’s frustration, the method was indefensible. “The system has channels for grievances. He should have approached the department, not endangered lives,” he said. Still, his decision not to take the call has sparked debate about whether a brief conversation might have de-escalated the situation. For now, investigators are probing Arya’s contracts, his prior correspondence with government officials, and whether mental health or financial distress played a role. The investigation is the case has been handed over to the Crime Branch, which is expected to summon Kesarkar for his statement. Meanwhile, a criminal writ petition has been filed in the Bombay High Court, seeking an impartial probe into Arya’s death, which the petitioner alleges was a “fake encounter.”
