Panaji, December 10: The owners of a Goa nightclub where a fire killed 25 people over the weekend fled India for Thailand within hours of the incident, prompting police to seek Interpol assistance to track them down, a senior officer said on Monday.
Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra, named as the main accused in the case, left Mumbai on an IndiGo flight to Phuket at 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 7, shortly after the blaze broke out around midnight at the club located about 25 km from the state capital Panaji.
Goa Police registered a case of culpable homicide and requested a Look Out Circular, issued the same day by the Bureau of Immigration. Checks later confirmed that the brothers had already departed the country, the officer said.
A police team was dispatched to New Delhi to search the Luthras’ residences, but officers found them absent and pasted legal notices on the gates. “This shows their intent to avoid the police investigation,” the officer said.
The fire, one of the worst such incidents in the coastal state in recent years, killed 20 employees of the nightclub and five tourists, including four from Delhi. Five injured people are being treated at the government-run Goa Medical College and Hospital.
Police said they had secured the transit remand of a club employee, Bharat Kohli, and were bringing him to Goa for further questioning. Autopsies on all 25 victims have been completed and the bodies handed over to their families. Authorities said they have asked the Central Bureau of Investigation’s Interpol Division to assist in locating and apprehending the Luthra brothers.
