Mumbai, Oct 30, 2025

Rohit Arya, the slain man behind the hostage drama at a Mumbai studio, was apparently driven to take the step to recover Rs 2 crore, which he had done under a project for the school education department during the tenure of former Maharashtra Minister Deepak Kesarkar.

Arya died of gunshot wounds after a dramatic shootout at RA Studio in Powai, where he held hostage 19 people, including 17 teenage acting auditioners, for two hours starting around 1.45 p.m. on Thursday, police said.

He, it seems, was trying to draw the attention of influential government functionaries, including Kesarkar, to get his Rs 2 crore payment released for the work he had carried out in a school project called “Swachhta Monitor” in 2023.

A resident of Pune, Arya had earlier tried to raise the

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