Na Witch doctor another bar was set on fire during the night. As reported by the media, an unknown person broke the window of a fast food restaurant in Vladimira Karić Street and poured flammable liquid on the premises, after which an explosion broke out. fire. Minor material damage was caused, and there were no casualties.
It has only been a little more than two weeks since a fire was set in the same way as the previous time in a witch doctor's bar. Attacks on catering establishments in Belgrade were more frequent this year than usual, and the most common targets were bars in that part of the city.
A large number of similar attacks leads the citizens of Belgrade to suspect that these are not random cases, but rather a phenomenon.
This year, the attacks have never been more frequent
As "Vreme" already wrote, during this year the number of attacks on catering establishments in Belgrade is in double digits.
In April, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the "Staro Uzice" restaurant on Autokomanda, where mafia confrontations had allegedly taken place before. The bar on Obilićevo venac suffered the same fate at the beginning of July, and then a few weeks later, within a few days, a cocktail was thrown at two other catering establishments in Vračar and one in Vojvode Stepe Street.
A restaurant in Požeška Street on Banovo brdo was the target of two attacks within a week, also with Molotov cocktails. In Vračar, a cafe was set on fire even during working hours, around 10:25 p.m., when a man entered the bar full of people with a torch. This summer, in the same night, explosive devices were thrown at two bars in the city, on Topčiderski Park and on Žarkovo.
Molotov cocktails and other patterns
Given that certain establishments are targeted for destruction, there is a suspicion that criminal clashes are behind these incidents.
Molotov cocktails, which are considered a relatively available weapon and therefore suitable for such attacks, were used most often.
In addition, the attacks themselves follow a similar pattern. The attackers, who usually wear hoods, almost always break window glass, throw a Molotov cocktail or spill flammable liquid and eventually flee.
Most of the burnings happen at night, which indicates that the goal is not to endanger someone's life, but only to cause material damage.
Potential racketeering
All this resembles the methods used in the racketeering of bar owners, which in the stories of investigative journalists about Belgrade's criminal groups, is often mentioned as one of the more lucrative "jobs" of criminals.
In an interview for "Blic TV", assistant chief of the Criminal Police Department, Dejan Radenković, noticed this.
"Perhaps it's a matter of regrouping some forces that want to take over someone's market - whether it's supremacy in the area of security, or supremacy in the area of business or, in jargon, racketeering of the owners of those facilities so that somehow a certain criminal group or individual has more influence and thus gets money," he said.
