Seventeen teenagers, aged 12–15, were rescued after a tense three-and-a-half-hour siege at RA Studio in the Mahavir Classic building, Powai, on Thursday afternoon. Neighbours alerted police after spotting children crying and pleading behind the studio’s glass windows. The rescue ended when a Mumbai police officer fired at the lone hostage-taker; he was later declared dead at a hospital.

Who was the accused?

Police identified the man as 50-year-old Rohit Arya, a Pune resident who had recently moved to his sister’s apartment in Chembur and rented the studio four days earlier, reportedly to audition children for a web series. Arya ran short video projects and had earlier led a government-linked cleanliness project; he was known to protest over unpaid dues. Investigations are ongoing into hi

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