📌 Key Highlights
- PANAJI: Delhi entrepreneurs, Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra, who fled to Thailand hours after the December 5 blaze at their n…
- The state police is sending a team to New Delhi to take custody of the two brothers, the officer said…
PANAJI: Delhi entrepreneurs, Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra, who fled to Thailand hours after the December 5 blaze at their nightclub in north Goa killed 25 people, are expected to be brought back to Delhi on Tuesday, a Goa police officer said.
The state police is sending a team to New Delhi to take custody of the two brothers, the officer said
The brothers were detained by Thai law enforcement officials at their hotel in Phuket last week, following a request from New Delhi. The Indian government has impounded their passports and issued a Blue notice via Interpol.
A Goa police officer said they had been asked to prepare to take custody of the Luthra brothers after the brothers were deported from Bangkok to India on Tuesday.
The officer said the Luthra brothers would be produced before a Delhi court on Tuesday to seek transit remand.
“A team from Goa Police will leave for Delhi later tonight and will be present to secure their custody when they exit the Delhi airport,” the officer cited above said.
The FIR, filed last Sunday, charges them under sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 125(a) and (b) (endangering life and personal safety), and 287 (negligent conduct with fire or combustible matter) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Police said a legal team representing the Luthras has travelled to Thailand and met with the brothers at an immigration detention centre where they are being held.
The brothers would be presented before a Thai court before they can be deported to India. The Indian Embassy issued the two emergency certificates after their passports were first impounded and later cancelled by the Ministry of External Affairs.
Six people, five managerial staff and a sixth, Ajay Gupta, identified as a business partner of the Luthras who ran the Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora. Police are searching for a seventh suspect, Surinder Kumar Khosla, the British property owner who signed a 2023 lease with Being GS Hospitality Goa Arpora LLP, the firm under which the club operated. The Luthra brothers and Gupta are listed as partners.
Khosla is believed to be out of the country. Police said the property lacked a construction licence, occupancy certificate, fire department NOC, and faced a demolition notice.
