Goa nightclub fire: Court sends co-owners Saurabh, Gaurav Luthra to 5-day police custody
Co-owners Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra were arrested after they landed in Delhi on Tuesday.
A Goa court on Wednesday remanded co-owners of ‘Birch by Romeo Lane’ nightclub – where 25 people died in a fire on December 6 – to five-day police custody.
Co-owners Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra were arrested after they landed in Delhi on Tuesday, after being deported from Thailand. The deportation process for the brothers had begun during the weekend, even as a court had denied anticipatory bail to them.
The Delhi-based entrepreneurs had fled to Phuket in Thailand, an hour-and-a-half after a blaze engulfed their nightclub in Goa's Arpora on December 6.
They had been detained by Thai law enforcement officials at their hotel in Phuket last week, after New Delhi initiated a request for the same. The Government of India had earlier approached international authorities, also issuing a Blue Notice via Interpol.
Brothers claimed backpain, no medical necessity found on examination
Advocate Vishnu Joshi, representing the victim's family, said the brothers said they are suffering from backpain, following which the Goa court ordered fresh medical examination for them, PTI reported.
“The court considered all submissions and directed the police to first conduct a pre-medical examination and re-examination. No medical necessity was found, following which the court, exercising its full authority, granted five days of police remand,” Joshi said.
The passports of the two accused had been impounded and later cancelled by the Ministry of External Affairs when they were in Thailand, following which the Indian Embassy had also issued two emergency certificates.
An FIR has been registered against the two brothers, with both being charged under sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 125(a) and (b) (endangering life and personal safety), and 287 (negligent conduct with fire or combustible matter) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Following this, police said a legal team representing the Luthra brothers had travelled to Thailand and met them at an immigration detention centre, where they were being held, according to an earlier HT report.
Six people, including five managerial staff and Ajay Gupta, a business partner of the Luthra brothers, have been named in the case so far. Search is also underway for a seventh person, Surinder Kumar Khosla. Khosla is the British property owner who signed a 2023 lease with Being GS Hospitality Goa Arpora LLP, the firm under which the club operated.
