Waiting on a fire? Inside the restaurant cluster in Khilgaon
The Taltola Road in Khilgaon is a popular food joint in Dhaka, packed with perhaps 100 restaurants. However, none of them have any concrete fire safety measures
If it were a usual afternoon, perhaps we wouldn't have gotten the managers of Pizzaburg Khilgaon branch for a conversation. With a star like Salman Muqtadir taking care of its marketing, the restaurant is quite popular among youngsters.
But when we were there yesterday, although it was almost lunch hour, only a few customers were there, hence the employees were free to speak to us.
We asked them directly that in case a fire breaks out, what would they do? "We have not been given any instructions yet, but we will be by today," said Saif who sits at the cash counter.
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The restaurant has three fire extinguishers and one of the staff said that he can operate them. But none of the workers we spoke to were fire-trained by the authority.
When we mentioned the Bailey Road tragedy, they admitted that they were concerned about their safety. And they have every reason to feel so because the Kapotakkho JF Tower the restaurant is located in doesn't have a fire exit and most importantly, they don't have access to the rooftop in case of an emergency downstairs.
When pressed about the fire exit issue, Saif told us, "To be very honest, I don't know about this yet."
A restaurant called Crush Station is located on the third floor of a building adjacent to the JF Tower. It also doesn't have access to the rooftop and the interior is decorated with plastic and other flammable elements.
They also don't have an emergency fire exit. In fact, not a single restaurant we visited in Khilgaon's famous restaurant cluster down the Taltola Road has a fire exit.
Md Rakib and Mehedi Hasan, employees of Crush Station, said that ever since the fire happened at Bailey Road, which killed both customers and restaurant workers, they have been worried and scared.
"Bhai, we got really scared," Rakib looked visibly nervous while talking to us. "This is very worrisome."
In this area, most restaurants are located in buildings which were built for residential purposes. Hence, the facilities that restaurants in commercial areas have are absent.
The extra safety measures taken by Crush Station, as they said, were, "We have taken the gas cylinders below. We have increased extinguishers, now we have three."
We also asked them if they had spoken to the authority about issues like not being able to take shelter anywhere in case of a fire emergency. They said they are having discussions on them.
Taltola Road in Khilgaon is packed with restaurants. We don't have a definite number, but it could pass 100. The restaurants and shopping malls stretch across a kilometre from Taltola Market to Abul Hotel.
From afternoon to late at night, the entire area is bustling with people. The nights are especially livelier as groups of customers swarm the roadside stalls.
Café Appeliano is a popular restaurant here. The same owner also has the Tradition BD restaurant in the same building. The building hosts some other restaurants as well.
During our visit here on Monday, we saw some changes such as a sign directing people towards the stairs. On our previous visits as customers, we only saw the small lift.
However, the moment we went in that direction, we saw a giant generator hindering the entrance to the stairs.
When we praised Tuhin Hawladar, the café in-charge for opening up the stairs for customers, he said, "Yes, we opened it some 15-20 days ago."
He said that they had a narrow door to the stairs before, beside the kitchen, and now they have expanded it for the customers.
But a customer named Rahat said, "In case of a fire, you cannot take the lift. On the other hand, if the generator explodes, there is no way out."
The security guards downstairs were talking about arrests of restaurant staff in other areas by the police; around 45 were arrested last night, one of them said.
Their speculation proved right as we entered the Sky View Nazma Tower adjacent to Taltola Market.
This nine-storeyed building has a restaurant on every floor, including Diggger, De Novo, Rockerz Café, Kaphia, Pizza Town, Time Square Dine, Grand House Music Café, and the Sky View Lounge-2 on the top floor.
We saw that one of the two lifts of the tower, a tiny one, was functioning. It can barely hold five people. The tower has one stairway and no fire exit.
However, the dead-silence in the building made us curious. From the first floor to the eighth, all the restaurants were shut down. Some had the fire service emergency number 16163 pasted on the door.
Once we reached Sky View Lounge-2, its in-charge Hafizur Rahman said that the entire facility was shut.
"It has been shut since the Bailey Road incident. Rajuk had objections. It will be reopened after the issues are solved," he said.
What objections were raised by Rajuk? "There are some issues only the (central) office can say," he replied.
He asked us to contact their Shantinagar head office to learn more, but refused to give us a contact number.
We managed a number on the internet but the man who received our calls said he didn't know what was happening to their Khilgaon building and refused to connect us to any other official.
On the ground floor, we only found a security guard named Faruk. When we asked him to connect us to the building owners, he made some phone calls and said that they will not talk to the press.
The Nightingale Skyview Tower is another restaurant building that we found eerily silent. Several restaurants are housed here including Pasta Club, Shawarma King, Three Doors, and Café Ipanema.
There is no fire exit and only a narrow flight of stairs along with a small lift.
One of the employees at a restaurant here said that some people were arrested from here the night before, hence some of the restaurants were closed.
We reached out to Khilgaon Police Station to learn about the arrests they made on Sunday night.
"We detained around 25 people in total [including some quarrelling youths]. We released 10 and sent 15 to the court for various irregularities," said Salahuddin Mia, the station-in-charge.
When asked about the irregularities, he said, "They were storing cylinder gas, and using the residential spaces commercially. These specific issues are supposed to be taken care of by Rajuk or the city corporation. We cannot act there, but what we can do is take steps where peoples' lives matter."
"They have been sent to the courts as per the DMP ordinance – on negligence issues – so that they become aware going forward," Salahuddin said. "We will conduct regular raids if there is something that endangers peoples' lives."
When we were returning from Pizzaburg after talking to the employees, Saif asked us why we, the media, only go after these issues after people are dead.
"Why don't you report [on these] before the accidents?" he said.
We explained to him that we do, but the restaurant authorities can also not deny their responsibilities. Ultimately, they are the ones who should ensure their customers' safety.
