Bhopal hostage crisis ends, jilted lover arrested for attempt to murder

A 12-hour hostage drama ended on Friday evening when police in Bhopal rescued a model who was held captive after holding talks with her jilter lover who held her captive in an apartment here, demanding that she marry him.

The 26-year-old woman was rushed to the hospital around 7 pm as she had suffered minor injuries, police said.

Meanwhile, the man has been arrested and booked under two separate cases of attempt to murder. The first case is for attacking a cop and the second one for attacking the woman.

Police negotiators used a hydraulic ladder to talk through a window to Rohit Singh, who held the woman hostage in her fifth-floor apartment.

Singh too was injured when he held out a gun from an open door and a policeman tried to snatch it, officers said, adding that he too was taken to hospital.

“Both did not sustain fatal injuries,” City (North) Superintendent of Police Rahul Lodha told reporters.

The woman sustained minor injuries to her neck and hand, he said.

“We convinced Singh (to let her go) saying we would not harm him and would help him in accordance with the law,” the SP said, without elaborating further.

“The operation took long. We held a series of conversations with him over video calls to ensure that the woman remained safe,” the SP said.

“We succeeded (around 7 pm) finally when we had a face-to-face talk with him through the window (with police negotiators perched atop a hydraulic ladder),” he said.

Throughout the day police kept up the supply of food, glucose and water to Singh to ensure that the woman and he himself stayed in good health.

The episode began when Singh, who claims to be an aspiring model, knocked on the woman’s door around 7 am. She opened the door and the two had an altercation, police said.

He took her to a room at gunpoint and bolted it from inside, said Inspector Sanjeev Chouse of Misrod police station.

Then he sent a video to a TV journalist through his mobile phone, saying the police and the woman’s family were opposed to their marriage so he was holding her hostage.

He shared another video sometime later, showing the woman lying on bed with bloodstains all around the room.

Soon, police and the media reached the spot, and police began persuading him to free the woman.

Singh, who hails from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, kept speaking to both the media persons and police by video calls, saying he wanted to marry the woman, and he would kill himself if they did not get married.

Singh and the woman had met in Mumbai around two years ago when she was pursuing her modelling career, and he fell in love with her while she apparently had no feelings for him, the police said.

After he allegedly started harassing her, her family had lodged a complaint against him in January, they said, adding that further details would come out during his questioning.