Bhopal Hostage Situation: ‘Stalker’ Arrested, Hit With Slippers

Bhopal’s 12-hour hostage situation ends after police arrested 30-year-old ‘stalker’ armed with a gun. Woman rescued.

A 12-hour hostage situation in Bhopal finally ended on Friday night after ‘stalker’ Rohit Singh opened the door to the police, who rescued the woman he had held captive in a room. The survivor was rushed to the hospital on a stretcher, and the accused was taken into police custody.

Before being produced in court, the police reportedly paraded him around Misrod, where the incident had taken place. There he was accosted by angry women, who beat him with their slippers, reports News18.

At around 6 am on Friday, 30-year-old Rohit Singh, who claims to be an assistant director, entered the house of the woman, a model/actor who lived on the fifth floor of an apartment in Misrod, armed with a pistol, knife and scissors. He then bolted the door from inside after the woman reportedly opened the door.

His only demand was that they were in love and he wanted to marry the girl and that the police should help him. I told him that since both were adults, no one could stop them. We also talked to the girl, who said that she wanted to go with Rohit. Our main aim was to get both of them out safely and we succeeded.

Superintendent of police (South) Rahul Lodha to Hindustan Times

Singh claimed the two knew each other from Mumbai where they worked, and claimed they were in love but the girl’s family was against their marriage. Soon after locking himself up with the woman, Singh released a video clip in which a woman was seen lying on a bed in an injured state. There was blood on the floor.

In a bid to get him to open the door, the police began talking to Rohit through video chat and even used a hydraulic lift of the fire brigade to approach the window of the fifth floor to try and talk to him. Finally, just before the hostage situation ended, the accused was seen waving his arms forming a victory sign with his fingers, signalling that she had agreed to marry him.

News18 reports that the woman, in her statement to the police, said that she was threatened at gunpoint. She said that she had no option but to agree to marry him, but didn’t want to.

Initially, he did not bother me. He started troubling me in Mumbai – asking me to marry him – since November. Yesterday, he forced me to sign a stamp paper stating that I will marry him. I don’t want to marry him. Send him to jail or he will kill me.

The woman to the police, as reported by News18

She told reporters that she wanted Singh to be given the death penalty.

Responding to the woman’s pleas, the Bhopal police arrested Singh and charged him under various sections of the IPC. According to the News18 report, he had inflicted several injuries on her neck with scissors.

We have booked him under Section 307 (attempted murder) for attacking the girl and also attacking a policeman in the morning when he had tried to rescue the girl. Rohit has also been charged for holding the girl captive (342, 506 of IPC).

Deputy Inspector General of Bhopal, Dharmendra Choudhary to Hindustan Times

According to a report by HT, a few neighbours of the woman claimed that Singh had come to her house and had created a scene on the day of Holi in March as well. Following this, a harassment case was filed against him. Singh was then released on bail.