Goa nightclub fire: Owners Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra fled to Phuket, say police

Saurabh Luthra and Gaurav Luthra — the principal accused and owners of the Goa nightclub where a devastating fire claimed 25 lives — fled to Phuket within hours of the blaze, Goa Police said on Monday, as authorities widened their investigation into what is now one of the state’s deadliest commercial disasters in recent years.

The inferno, which tore through the coastal nightclub roughly 25 km from Panaji late on Saturday night, spread with alarming speed, according to officials familiar with the initial probe. Fire services have indicated that emergency exits were either inadequate or obstructed, and early assessments suggest that highly flammable acoustic materials and possible electrical faults may have aggravated the blaze — issues that have been at the centre of several nightclub and restaurant fires across India in recent years.

By the time firefighters brought the flames under control, 25 people had died: 20 staff members and five tourists, including four from Delhi. Five others remain under treatment at Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH).

A senior police officer said, “Goa Police have taken further steps to coordinate with the Interpol Division of the CBI to apprehend both Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra at the earliest,” adding that investigators had already traced the pair’s movements in the hours after the tragedy.

Following the registration of an FIR, a Look Out Circular was issued by the Bureau of Intelligence (BOI) on 7 December at the request of Goa Police. When authorities contacted the Bureau of Immigration in Mumbai, records showed the accused had boarded IndiGo flight 6E 1073 to Phuket at 5.30 am on 7 December — barely five hours after the fire broke out around midnight.

A police team was immediately dispatched to Delhi to raid multiple addresses linked to the brothers. “Since they were not available, a notice under the appropriate sections of law was pasted on the gate of their house. This shows their intent to avoid the police investigation,” the officer said.

Goa Police have also secured transit remand for Bharat Kohli, a club employee, who is being brought back to the state for questioning. Post-mortem examinations for all 25 victims have been completed, and the bodies handed over to their families as investigators continue to piece together the sequence of events that led to the catastrophic fire.

With PTI inputs