Week after Goa nightclub fire, Luthra brothers set to be deported from Thailand, likely today
The Delhi-based businessmen had fled to Phuket in Thailand just hours after a blaze ripped through their nightclub
Fugitive brothers Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra, owners of the nightclub Birch by Romeo Lane in Goa where a fire killed 25 people last week, may be brought back to India from Thailand as soon as Sunday, officials said on Saturday.
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The Delhi-based businessmen had fled to Phuket in Thailand just hours after a blaze ripped through their nightclub. They took an IndiGo flight from Delhi to Phuket the morning of last Sunday, after learning of the fire that broke out late Saturday night, December 6, at their club in Arpora, North Goa.
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The process for deportation has begun, and they are expected to be brought back to India by Sunday, officials familiar with the development told HT.
The passports of the Luthras were cancelled by the ministry of external affairs on Tuesday, following a request from the Goa Police, and an Interpol Blue Corner notice was issued. Police had raided their homes in Delhi last Sunday but they had fled by then.
A local court in Delhi has already also rejected their anticipatory bail plea, in which they had said they feared being “lynched” in Goa, where bulldozer action has been taken against illegal bars and clubs since.
Chief minister Pramod Sawant told reporters on Thursday that a joint team of the Goa Police and the Central Bureau of Investigation was headed to Thailand to bring the brothers to Goa, via Delhi.
News agency ANI, quoting unnamed Thai officials, reported that “the process of deportation is now underway, the final confirmation on the date, time and specific flight details remains pending”.
The victims of the fire included four members of a Delhi family — three sisters and the husband of another of the sisters, who was injured in the incident.
Authorities have said that even as the fire was gutting the structure, having started around 11.45 pm, the brothers booked tickets to Thailand at 1.17am, and flew out at 5.30. The lookout notice against them could be issued 24 hours later.
They were detained by local authorities in Thailand on Thursday.
In the FIR last Sunday, Goa Police booked the brothers along with other unnamed individuals for culpable homicide not amounting to murder (section 105), for acts endangering the lives and personal safety of others (125-a and b), and for negligent conduct with respect to fire or combustible matter (section 287) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
The police on Saturday recorded the statements of five members of the village panchayat of Arpora, which is under the scanner for granting a trade licence to the establishment in 2023 without a valid construction licence and an occupancy certificate. Several other departments issued permissions to the establishment based on the licence by the panchayat.
However, the trade licence expired in March 2024.
Sarpanch Roshan Redkar told reporters that all permissions issued to the establishment were on the basis of resolutions adopted by the panchayat body, and were not his decision alone.
Redkar and panchayat secretary Raghuvir Bagkar have been questioned but have secured interim protection from arrest from a local court.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, the police custody of four managers arrested the following morning after the incident was extended for five more days.
