As a group of media workers were covering a fire that originated in a restaurant at Wari in Old Dhaka on Friday night, the staffers of the eatery obstructed them.
The blaze erupted around 10:15pm from the kitchen of a restaurant called Peshwarain, but it was doused in 20 minutes, according to the Fire Service and Civil Defence.
From sharp 11pm, the Dhaka Tribune livestreamed the incident for 11 minutes and 46 seconds.
One of the staffers was seen in the video saying: “The hose of a gas cylinder caused the fire. On information, six firefighting units rushed here.”
“But the flame was extinguished before the firemen arrived. No casualties have resulted from the fire.”
The daily’s digital journalist, Sk Sharifuddin Ahad, filmed different parts of the restaurant, reporting that there were two kitchens in the restaurant, one on the ground floor and the other on the first floor.
“The one on the first floor was damaged due to the fire. But the one on the ground floor was not affected at all,” he added in the live.
On the 50th second of the eighth minute of the video recorded, someone was yelling at him: “Who are you? Please, get out.”
Despite revealing his professional identity, several employees of the restaurant asked him to leave the spot. They were shouting at him.
Many of the employees were in the eatery’s uniforms. Amid the chaos, some of them claimed that the fire did not ignite from a gas cylinder.
“We showed both kitchens. After I appeared in the kitchen on the first floor, they asked me to move. But as I was advancing to get comments from the Fire Service, one of the restaurant employees started to force me to leave the scene,” Ahad said.
“Some of his colleagues also joined him in the process. They asked all journalists covering the incident not to record that. Instantly, they forced us out of the spot and shut down the first floor,” he added.
