“I was outside the restaurant and a little after 1 p.m., I heard a loud explosion inside. As I rushed inside, I saw smoke and fire near the hand wash area and there was a pungent, burning smell. I do not know how the blast occurred. I saw many people injured and helped rush them to a hospital,” said Sachin Lamani, a security guard with The Rameshwaram Cafe’s Brookfield outlet, where a low-intensity blast occurred on Friday afternoon.
Like any other typical Friday afternoon, many had assembled at the popular Rameshwaram Cafe for lunch when the blast occurred. While ten people, including three staff members of the cafe, suffered injuries, CCTV footage showed the remaining customers and employees at the restaurant running in panic.
Suresh, an eyewitness who was near the restaurant when the blast happened, said he heard a huge explosion and rushed to the cafe. “There was dense smoke and none of us could go in. It took us over 10 minutes to get inside the cafe. We saw at least eight people injured. We rushed them to a nearby hospital in auto rickshaws,” he said.
Speaking to media persons near the restaurant, Shabarish, another eyewitness, said, “There was a loud sound around 1 p.m. which must have been audible in one-kilometre radius. There was a lot of smoke around cafe. When I went and checked there, a few customers and employees were injured and bleeding. Some tiles were also broken. Some of us who had gathered there sent a few victims to the hospital.”
