“Delhi was hit by a powerful earthquake on Tuesday afternoon and I had to miss my 2:30 p.m. lunch to cover the story,” Dhanasumod D, chief of bureau, TV News (a Malayalam news channel), told The Hindu on Thursday. Recollecting the extraordinary afternoon that Tuesday was Mr. Dhanasumod said he wasn’t allowed to enjoy his ‘usual peaceful lunch’ at Kerala House.
“I had rushed to the Kerala House canteen at 4:20 p.m. unhappy that all non-vegetarian dishes would have been long over. Since I am a regular customer, I am usually allowed to squeeze in even after the lunch time (12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.),” he said.“I sat down to have my all vegetarian meal when I heard some loud noise outside. This was unusual for the largely sleepy Kerala House premises where noise mostly filters in from the Jantar Mantar protest site,” said Mr. Dhanasumod.
“Soon we saw two people in civil dress and two Delhi Police officials in uniform at the cash counter. They were asking for the canteen menu and wanted to know if cow meat was being served here. The man at the counter told him that it was buffalo meat, which was being served and that cow meat had never entered the premises.”
‘Polite’ questioning quickly turned into a heated argument and fast became a scuffle. The scuffle ended only after the Hindu Sena members were assured by the Delhi Police that they were looking into the matter.
“I had called in my cameraperson from our office across the road and by then the Delhi Police personnel said that they wanted to check the kitchen and the storage area. While the camera managed to capture the tussle between the Kerala House staff and the Hindu Sena members, we were not allowed inside the cooking area. Later, the Delhi Police inspected the premises and we saw 20-25 more police personnel coming in and stationing themselves around the canteen. It was disturbing,” he said.
He said when the police found nothing more than the chicken stored in the fridge, they left the premises.
“Needless to say that I and several others skipped lunch that Tuesday,” said Mr. Dhanasumod, standing at Jantar Mantar on Thursday afternoon, covering the follow-up to the low-density protest by members of the Hindu Sena demanding the immediate release of Vishnu Gupta, who made the complaint of cow meat sale and currently under the preventive arrest at the Parliament Street police station.
A regular customer at Kerala House speaks about the Hindu Sena and the Police ‘raid’ on Tuesday afternoon
