Sujata Cinema, along Main Road in Ranchi, is an inferno on Friday morning and (below) firemen in combat. (Prashant Mitra) Sujata Cinema - the oldest single-screen theatre in capital Ranchi that was being revamped into a multicrore multiplex and was scheduled for reopening in a month - was badly charred in a big fire early on Friday morning. The cinema, in a residential-cum-commercial area along Mahatma Gandhi Road or Main Road, is tucked between 200-odd homes and a private hotel, dotted with another two dozen makeshift shops. Starring Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan, Namak Haraam, which released in 1973, was the first film to be screened at Sujata Cinema that debuted the same year. Raj Sinha, a government employee, recalled how his friends and he went to Sujata Cinema on the pretext of visiting the British Library, which was bang opposite to the hall.

Source: The Telegraph February 10, 2017 22:17 UTC