After back-to-back suspected arsons, Scarborough restaurant owner says he can no longer sleep

Early Friday morning, Siva Rapaka received a call telling him there was a fire at one of his restaurants in Scarborough. The next day, he received another call saying a second restaurant he owns in the area was on fire. 

"If we close our eyes, all we see is flames," he said. 

"We cannot sleep. Every night we go to bed thinking, 'What's next? Which restaurant will [they] target next?'"

The fire happened at Shaaz Indian Cuisine on Friday and Bisi Bisi, a South Indian restaurant, on Saturday, according to a news release by Tanisi Brands, which owns both spots. Toronto police are investigating the fires as suspected arson and said they believe the incidents are connected. 

Rapaka visited what remains of Shaaz Indian Cuisine for the first time on Thursday. The interior is charred and extensively damaged. Some chairs have melted down, and the ceiling is breaking apart. What remains of the furniture is covered in ash, rubble and some surviving dinnerware still arranged in a table setting. 

"I'm speechless," Rapaka told CBC Toronto. "We built this brick by brick. I cannot look at it." 

His favourite table in the back of the restaurant, where he used to sit every day and talk to customers, is now reduced to ash, he said. 

The restaurant "used to smell like fresh food, fresh cup of tea," Rapaka said. 

"Now it smells like burned food." 

Some 80 people are now out of work after the fires, Rapaka said, who joined employees at a rally in Scarborough on Thursday. They are calling for more funding for Toronto police after these attacks, but also "assert[ing] that we will not be pressured into selling our restaurants to 'undesirable buyers,'" the news release said. 

Rapaka said he doesn't know why his businesses may have been targeted. He declined to say whether the restaurants have been extorted for money before. 

Police say three male suspects wearing masks broke into Shaaz Indian Cuisine, located near Lawrence Avenue E. and Kennedy Road, around 2:45 a.m. on Friday. 

Two male suspects wearing masks and dark-coloured clothing broke into Bisi Bisi, located in the same area, around 3:30 a.m. on Saturday. No one was in the restaurant at the time, police said. 

Police have released an image of the two suspects in the second fire and the suspect vehicle, which they say is a silver SUV — possibly a Honda CRV —  with a purple light on the driver's side of the dashboard.