Goa Nightclub Birch Owners Gaurav And Saurabh Luthra Fled To Thailand Hours After Fire

Arpora: A shocking development has surfaced in the investigation into the deadly Goa’s Birch nightclub fire incident that killed 25 in the intervening night of December 6 and 7. As per reports, within a matter of hours, the two owners of the nightclub, Gaurav and Saurabh Luthra, fled to Phuket before the Goa police could even reach them.

Surprisingly, the Luthra brothers took, IndiGo flight to Phuket, the airline, which witnessed a wave of flight cancellations and delays globally, in the past few days. As per reports, the flight, 6E 1073, departed Mumbai at 5.30 am, a little over five hours after the inferno had been brought under control. The revelation has raised questions about the Goa government and the police on how the brothers managed to evade the authorities so effortlessly.

Reportedly, a Goa police team travelled to Delhi on the morning of December 7, hoping to locate the brothers at their registered address. However, when they arrived, the house was empty, and officers were forced to affix a legal notice to the door. By evening, the Bureau of Immigration had issued a Look‑Out Circular (LoC) at the request of the Goa Police, but the damage was already done. The brothers had slipped through the net, and the police have since been reduced to coordinating with the Interpol division of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to secure their arrest abroad. The critics suggested that the police’s failure to act before the flight took off demonstrates a disturbing inertia.

Meanwhile, the state government’s handling of the tragedy has come under intense scrutiny. Despite the scale of the disaster, no senior official has been suspended, and the minister responsible for municipal administration has remained silent. The opposition leaders have accused the administration of turning a blind eye to safety violations that allowed the fire to spread unchecked. Additionally, the lack of immediate action to freeze the owners’ assets or to issue a nationwide alert has been described as a dereliction of duty.

Further details regarding the incident are awaited.