Ex-Minister On Why He Didn't Speak To Mumbai Hostage Taker, Despite His Demand

During the three-hour hostage crisis in Mumbai in which 17 children and two adults were held captive by filmmaker Rohit Arya at a studio, he kept asking to speak to former school education minister Deepak Kesarkar. Arya held the people hostage because dues for his work for the education department were allegedly unpaid, and he wanted to speak to Kesarkar since he headed the department.

The Mumbai Police said they called Kesarkar and requested him to speak to Arya, but he refused. The former minister may now be called in to record his statement.

Asked about this, Kesarkar, who held the education portfolio between August 2022 and November 2024,  has said he did not want to speak to Arya because he was in no position to make assurances, and would have done so if he had known it would help in any way.

Arya, who had held the 19 people hostage at RA Studios in Powai on October 30, had claimed he was owed over Rs 2 crore for an urban sanitation and cleanliness drive led by his company, Apsara Media Entertainment Network. The education department has denied the claim.

Officials said Arya repeatedly asked negotiators to connect him to Kesarkar so he could speak to him about the dues. "We called Kesarkar and asked if he would speak to Arya, but he said no," said an official.

When the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) leader was asked why he refused, he said he had asked the police to make Arya speak to the current school education minister or officials who could give him the necessary assurances. No one could have foreseen, Kesarkar said, that Arya would be killed in a shootout with the police.

The former minister claimed the police had called him only once and he was never told that others could not be reached. He said he had no objection to speaking to Arya and if the police had told him he just wanted to have a conversation, he would have agreed.

Kesarkar reiterated that he wanted to help, and the only reason he said no was that he thought Arya wanted assurances and he was in no position to do so.