Goa club owners who fled hours after deadly blaze held in Thailand

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra will be brought to Goa from Thailand “as soon as possible”.

“I want to thank Goa police and all Central agencies…CBI, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), that due to their prompt action and swift coordination and within four days, the two club owners, who had escaped to Thailand, have been detained there. Within a short span of time, a team of Goa police, CBI and other agencies…will bring them to Goa. They will be put behind bars. The third owner (Ajay Gupta) was arrested from Delhi and brought to Goa,” Sawant said.

He said the authorities acted promptly by issuing look out circulars and issuing Blue Corner Notices to apprehend the accused. “We also wrote to the passport office to impound their passports,” he said.

Sawant said action will be taken against all who signed off on various permissions for the club to operate.

Police sources said the law enforcement agencies zeroed in on the location of a hotel in Patong, where the brothers had taken refuge, late Wednesday night, and after coordinated response of the Central agencies, Goa police and authorities in Thailand, the detention was made.

“The brothers were in Phuket for the past four days. Both were staying in a hotel and eating at nearby restaurants. It will take 3-4 days to bring them to India due to legal formalities. They are in custody of Thailand police. The duo will be shifted to Bangkok first,” said a senior police officer, privy to the investigation.

According to investigators probing the case, Ajay Gupta, who was arrested Wednesday from Delhi, was in Goa when the incident took place on December 6 night. Police said he flew to Delhi from Goa on Sunday morning.

“He was not at the site of the blaze, but he was in Goa when the incident occurred. Soon after, he left for Delhi,” said a police officer. When a police team from Goa reached his residence in Gurgaon, he was not found there. Police traced him to a private hospital in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar, where he got himself admitted for treatment of a spinal issue. “He said he had a lower back surgery five years ago and had been experiencing sharp pain in the spine, and hence he sought treatment,” the officer said.

After Gupta was discharged from the hospital, he was arrested and taken to a Delhi court, from where he was granted transit remand to be shifted to Goa. Gupta was produced before a court in Mapusa Thursday and remanded to police custody for seven days. “I am a sleeping partner. I have no role in operations,” Gupta told the media as he left the court in police custody.

Meanwhile, The Indian Express has learnt that the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has impounded the passports of the Luthra brothers.

In New Delhi Thursday, a city court denied transit anticipatory bail to the Luthra brothers. The order came hours after Goa Police told the court that the brothers had “fled to Thailand” after booking a flight just one-and-half hours after the fire incident.

Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra and Advocate Tanveer Ahmed Mir told the Rohini court of Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Vandana that no vicarious liability could be assigned to the Luthras as they were licensees and not owners of the nightclub. They also said the Luthras were not present in the club when the incident took place. They said the brothers went to Thailand for business interests.

The Goa Police counsel said, “They have no business interests in Thailand. There is an LOC against them on December 7 and a Blue Corner Notice by Interpol on December 9. They have misled the court.”

“They were running this entire thing without any licence. There was only one narrow entry and exit,” he said, adding that the accused were making “bogus medical claims” to seek interim relief.