Leading Marathi actress Ruchita Jadhav said she was contacted by Rohit Aarrya

MUMBAI: Leading Marathi actor Ruchita Jadhav said she was contacted by Rohit Aarrya, the man who took 17 children, a 75-year-old grandmother, and a studio staffer hostage inside a Powai recording studio on Thursday.In an Instagram post, she said she had been contacted by a man named Rohit Aarrya on October 4 about a film project based on a “hostage situation.” As an actor, she agreed to hear more and later confirmed a meeting for October 28 at a studio in Powai.“On October 27, he sent me the details — including the studio location — and asked if we could meet the next day. Due to an unavoidable family commitment, I cancelled the meeting,” she wrote.

When she saw the news of the hostage crisis days later, she said she felt “a chill.”“I can’t stop thinking about how close I came to being there. I’m feeling incredibly grateful to God and my family… this reminded me that we must be extremely careful when meeting new people for work,” she added.Jadhav also shared screenshots of WhatsApp chats showing Aarrya asking, “Are you coming tomorrow? What time?”Aarrya had also contacted well-known Marathi artistes Ruchita Jadhav, Girish Oak and Urmila Kanetkar for a supposed film shoot scheduled this week at the same studio.On October 31, Mumbai police said Rohit Aarrya, a self-styled filmmaker and social entrepreneur, held several people hostage at a Powai recording studio for nearly three hours before being shot dead. All hostages were rescued unharmed.Police said Aarrya, who owned Apsara Media, had worked on awareness videos under the Swachh Bharat campaign and described himself as a “social entrepreneur.” His social media accounts featured photos with ministers and film personalities, and posts linking him to school-based cleanliness initiatives launched in Maharashtra.Investigators said Aarrya had been living in a Chembur apartment owned by a relative and had recently begun auditions for a supposed web series. He had earlier lived in Pune’s Kothrud area, though neighbours said his parents had moved out about a week before the incident.During the standoff, Aarrya released a video in which he said he had taken hostages “according to a plan” and wanted to have a “conversation” with unnamed people.“I am neither a terrorist nor do I have a demand for money,” he said in the video. “I just have moral and ethical demands.”He also warned that any “wrong move” by police could trigger him to “set this place on fire.”Police spent nearly two hours trying to negotiate with the captor, Rohit Aarrya, and gauge his demands, but he refused to cooperate, even after one of the girls’ parents said she suffered from seizures, cops said. An official said he appeared calm when police spoke to him.City police chief Deven Bharti maintained that Aarrya fired first, prompting retaliatory police firing. “Regardless of his demands, we couldn’t let him play with lives. Our team fired back in self-defence. There was no other option.” Other officials reiterated that the safety of those held captive was the priority, adding that the team’s response was measured and as per the protocol. The death prompted calls by legal experts for a magisterial inquiry.While Aarrya did not elaborate on his motive in the video or during police’s attempts at negotiations, it emerged that he had sat on a hunger strike against former school education minister Deepak Kesarkar in 2024 over alleged dues of Rs 2 crore for a state-sanctioned school cleanliness project. Kesarkar said he personally gave him some money as a “gesture of sympathy” even though the school education department maintained that Aarrya had collected payment directly from some children. He said Aarrya should have taken the issue up with the department instead of holding children hostage.