Bhopal hostage crisis accused paraded by police; women assault him with slippers

Bhopal: Police on Saturday paraded a man through the area in Bhopal where he had held a woman captive at gunpoint for more than 12 hours demanding that she marry him, as women bystanders angry over the hostage crisis assaulted him with slippers.

Rohit Singh, 30, on Friday barged into the fifth-floor apartment of the 26-year-old woman in Misrod area of Bhopal. He had held the woman, a professional model, hostage at gunpoint. She was rescued last evening by police.

On Saturday, the woman told reporters that she did not want to marry the man and urged authorities to put him in jail fearing he would again attempt to harm her.

Misrod Police Inspector Sanjeev Chouse said that Singh was presented before the court of judicial magistrate Ashish Parsai, who remanded him to one-day police custody.

Before being produced in the court, Singh was paraded in Misrod area, where the hostage crisis took place, Chouse said.

Witnesses said Singh was also assaulted by women as he crossed the area under police custody.

Chouse said Singh, who claims to be an assistant casting director, has been charged with attempt to murder and other offences under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The woman is undergoing treatment at a hospital for injuries suffered during the crisis. She told reporters that she wanted him to be given the death penalty. “Rohit should be hanged,” she told reporters.

“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,” she said.

Inspector Chouse said Singh had inflicted injuries on the neck of the woman with scissors.

Singh has told police that he would have shot her dead had she not promised to marry him and then would have committed suicide, Chouse said.

“A firearm with one bullet and the pair of scissors have been recovered from him,” Ghouse said.