Chennai: The New Woodlands Hotel, owned for nearly 100 years by a Kannadiga family and located on a prime spot on Dr Radhakrishnan Salai in Mylapore, came under a petrol bomb attack during the small hours of Monday.
This turned out to be the first attack on establishments having a Karnataka connection.
A pro-Tamil sloganeering mob entered into the Woodlands hotel in Chennai at around 3.30 am damaged the glass panels and reception area.
The attackers hurled as many as six petrol filled bottles without lighting them to scare off the employees and security guards.
Before leaving the spot, the mob stuck a six-line note on of the doors of the hotel.
The note read: ‘If attacks on Tamils continued in Karnataka, Kannadiga establishments here will be attacked. Kannadigas live here too. Beware!’
The late K. Krishna Rao, who migrated to the State from Karnataka about a century ago, founded the hotel.
A Volvo bus belonging to Sangita Travels, bearing a Karnataka registration number was attacked and its windshield damaged.
Later on Monday evening, a branch of the Karnataka Bank located on II Avenue in Anna Nagar was stoned. Stray stones hit the adjacent building which houses a construction firm.
