Mumbai hostage crisis’ ‘script’: Kids gagged, hands tied for hours; how motion sensors, chemicals were part of Rohit Aarrya’s setup

MUMBAI: The hostage crisis’ ‘script’ was apparently readied over a month. The 17 children had their hands tied and mouths taped at the Powai recording studio on Thursday, but everyone went along with it for hours believing that a “hostage scene” for a web series was being shot.

Panic set in only after the captor, Rohit Aarrya, pulled out a gun and a rod and threatened to kill them, reveal chilling accounts from the victims.Police said he came prepared — rags sprayed with some chemical were placed randomly around the duplex studio and on the floor to start a fire in case things went south, motion detectors were installed on the main door and moving cameras set up on all floors.

A Powai police officer said Aarrya had read out his web series script to 23 selected children and their parents during the audition of 36 hopefuls and had convinced the participants that a hostage scene was to be filmed on the last day of the five-day shoot. “Only 17 of the 23 children attended preparations at the studio for four days,” he said. These “preparations” lulled the eight boys and the nine girls aged 10-15 who walked into the studio at 8am Thursday into a false sense of safety.A few hours later, some children sensed something amiss and began screaming. That, said a senior officer, annoyed Aarrya. “He began waving an airgun and an iron rod at us, screaming that he would kill us all,” said one of the girls. “It was only then that we realised this was no longer fiction.