Mumbai: While negotiating with the captor in Thursday’s ‘hostage crisis’ at a Powai studio, a senior Mumbai police officer offered to be bound and confined in exchange for the 17 captive minors to be released unharmed. However, the captor, Rohit Aarrya, refused the offer.Aarrya also wanted to speak to former school education minister Deepak Kesarkar. Later, he requested to be connected to the current school education minister, Dadaji Bhuse. Sources in the Mumbai Police said dozens of phone calls were exchanged between Aarrya and the negotiating officers between 2.15 pm and 4 pm on Thursday. Initially, the negotiating officers believed they could persuade him into releasing the children unharmed. The police said he would get his calls with the minister and should release the children. However, Aarrya would not give in. “He would keep disconnecting the phone calls mid-conversation, as he monitored surveillance camera footage and kept an eye on the captive children,” said a source.The negotiating officers kept dialling him back. At one point, a senior officer said he was willing to enter the building unarmed and bound to be confined in exchange for the release of the children. The police also connected the kids’ parents to Aarrya over the phone and they pleaded for their release, but in vain. “Towards the end of two hours, it was clear that the negotiations were not working. This is when a small rescue team, comprising assistant police inspector Amol Waghmare and two constables, entered the building through a window on the first floor,” the source said, adding that a conscious decision was made not to send in the QRT (Quick Response Team) due to the apprehension that Aarrya might harm the children.A key witness in the case, executive producer Rohan Aher, who was roped in by Aarrya for auditioning the children for three days before the incident, said the latter behaved absolutely normally until noon on Thursday before the ‘hostage crisis’ unfolded. “I have known Aarrya for over a decade, and I’m finding it difficult to come to terms with the death. The events of Thursday keep coming up before my eyes, and I’ve been unable to sleep properly,” said Aher, who suffered injuries while breaking a glass door to move the captive children to a safer spot. “Earlier that day, Aarrya and I stepped outside for a cigarette, and he mentioned it would be our last smoke together, but I did not understand what he meant at the time,” Aher said.
