Saurabh Luthra and Gaurav Luthra, who ran the nightclub Birch by Romeo Lane, where a fire killed 25 people in North Goa’s Arpora village on the night of December 6, have been deported from Thailand and will land in Delhi today afternoon.
The brothers were detained from a hotel in Thailand’s Patong last week, based on a request from Indian law enforcement agencies, following which the process to deport them was expedited. The duo was shifted to an immigration facility in Bangkok earlier this week and is being brought to Delhi by officials of central agencies.
Sources said the Indian Embassy in Bangkok issued an emergency certificate to facilitate their one-way travel to India after their passports were impounded.
A team of the Goa police is in Delhi to take the duo into custody. Sources said that after landing at Delhi’s IGI Airport, the brothers are likely to be produced in a court in Delhi, where the Goa police is likely to seek their transit remand. The brothers will then be transported to Goa by late evening or night for further interrogation and probe, according to Goa police sources.
According to investigators, the Luthra brothers had taken a flight from Delhi to Phuket at 5:30 am on December 7, hours after the incident, which took place around midnight. The duo booked the tickets at 1:17 am on December 7 to flee the country, within 90 minutes of the blaze.
The technical fire safety incident report of the Fire Department found that information regarding a fire outbreak at the premises was received by the fire control room at 11:45 pm on December 6. Police said the accused duo was attending a wedding in Delhi on the night of the incident, when a club staff member informed them about the blaze.
Soon after they left the country, a lookout circular (LOC) was issued against them by the Bureau of Immigration at the request of the Goa Police. Later, a Blue Corner Notice was issued, and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) impounded their passports.