Powai studio hostage case: senior officer said the children aged between 10 to 12 years were at the studio for an audition. (Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee)
In a five-minute-long video from 2023 on the website of Project Let’s Change (PLC) Swachhata Monitor, Rohit Arya, who is identified as the Project Director, is seen passionately speaking about the initiative, how it is being implemented in schools across the state. In another video from 2023, Arya is seen with then Minister of School Education Deepak Kesarkar, in which the minister is seen praising the project and its results. In October 2024, Arya held a hungerstrike in Pune, claiming that he had not been paid the funds promised by the government. It was at this agitation held at the Pune Union of Working Journalists premises, Arya had suffered a seizure and had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance.
On Thursday, Arya was at the centre of a hostage drama, where he held captive 17 students at a studio in Powai, at the end of which he was killed.
At a residential society in Shivtirth Nagar area of Kothrud, where Arya’s elderly parents live, a neighbour said, “Rohit’s father A R Harolikar lives in our residential society with his wife. Both are in their late 70s. We have heard that Rohit changed his surname sometime in the past. Harolikar is a heart patient. The couple left for Mumbai in the afternoon. Rohit stays at a residential society nearby with his wife and son, we have heard.”
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Another neighbour of the parents said, “The elderly couple always kept to themselves and hardly talked to anyone. I have interacted with Rohit a couple of times. He used to come here regularly during Covid pandemic to take care of his parents. I thought from my brief interaction that Rohit was a bright and enthusiastic man. What has happened is very tragic.”
At the agitation where Arya suffered a seizure, his wife Anjali had rushed to the location after hearing about it. In some of the videos of the time available online, Anjali says that her husband had been demanding and holding a hungerstrike for the pending payment for his project, which had been approved by the government. She said the government had taken up the project and approved Rs 2 crore for it.
Activist Suraj Lokhande said he knew Rohit since last year when he held a fast outside the Patrakar Bhavan in Pune last year. “He had fasted last year in August demanding that the state government should pay him for the help he extended in implementing the My Beautiful School project launched by the education department. He claimed the idea behind the project was his,” Lokhande said.
Lokhande said his condition deteriorated during the fast and he collapsed. “After he collapsed, I took him to the hospital and in a way saved his life… The same thing happened when he undertook another fast a few months later,” he said.
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Lokhande said during his interactions, Arya told him that the state government owed him between Rs 45 lakh and Rs one crore. “I have the copies of the letters which Arya had sent to the state government demanding his dues. However, the government did not respond,” he alleged.
Showing pictures of Kesarkar, Lokhande said, “Arya’s family feels let down by Kesarkar… Arya had sent a letter to the state government in which he said Kesarkar had come to his home in August 2024 and promised to resolve his grievance including giving his name to a project. However, Kesarkar did not keep his word.”
Lokhande said Arya sounded polite and would discuss his problems with him freely. “But I never thought he would go to such an extent… The path he adopted to secure justice for himself was wrong. But at the same time, the government should also think as to how it refused to give justice to him despite his repeated demands,” he said.
The family of Rohit Arya lived in Kothrud area for 22 years.
Sushant Kulkarni is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express in Pune with 12+ years of experience covering issues related to Crime, Defence, Internal Security and Courts. He has been associated with the Indian Express since July 2010.
Sushant has extensively reported on law and order issues of Pune and surrounding area, Cyber crime, narcotics trade and terrorism. His coverage in the Defence beat includes operational aspects of the three services, the defence research and development and issues related to key defence establishments. He has covered several sensitive cases in the courts at Pune.
Sushant is an avid photographer, plays harmonica and loves cooking. ... Read More
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
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