Minneapolis restaurant burned but Bangladeshi owner supports demo over George Floyd’s death

Though a Bangladeshi family lost their business in the uproar over the death of George Floyd, they continue to support demonstrators and helped medics treat the wounded, according to a report by The New York Times.

The Gandhi Mahal Restaurant, owned by Ruhel Islam, is situated just a few doors away from the Third Precinct headquarters of the Minneapolis Police Department, which was set ablaze by protesters on Thursday night.

As a result, other buildings also burned, and fire eventually reached the restaurant.

Hafsa Islam (18), Ruhel's daughter, woke up at 6am to hear the news.

"At first, I was angry," reports The New York Times quoting Hafsa. "This is my family's main source of income."

But then she overheard her father, Ruhel Islam, speaking to a friend on the phone. "Let my building burn," he said. "Justice needs to be served."

After the fire stopped smoldering and the family came together, he repeated his support for the protests that had closed his restaurant. "We can rebuild a building, but we cannot rebuild a human," said Ruhel (42). "The community is still here, and we can work together to rebuild."

Gandhi Mahal opened in 2008, during the Great Recession. Although Ruhel believes in nonviolent protest -- he named his restaurant in honour of Mohandas K Gandhi -- he empathises with the frustrations of many Minneapolis residents.

"I am going to continuously promote peaceful ways and nonviolent movement," he said. "But our younger generation is angry, and there's reason to be angry."

So as mounted police fired tear gas into the crowd on Tuesday, the Islam family opened a room in their spacious restaurant to medics, who set up a makeshift field hospital. Hafsa said she saw at least 200 people come in and out on both Tuesday and Wednesday night.

Both Tuesday and Wednesday night, before the medics had to relocate to a nearby church to protect their patients, Ruhel kept cooking. As wounds were bandaged and hands were held in the front room, he was in the kitchen, preparing daal, rice and naan. Simple food, he said, but nourishing nevertheless, just the thing to get his community through a long, dark night.