The CBI has approached Interpol, the global police body, requesting it to issue a blue notice against brothers Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra, who fled to Phuket hours after a fire at their Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub in north Goa killed 25 people.
A blue notice allows member countries to collect information about a person’s identity, location or activities in connection with a criminal investigation. It is not an arrest request but helps countries track a suspect globally.
“The CBI is pursuing with the Lyon-headquartered Interpol to quickly issue blue notices against the Luthras so that they don’t flee to some other country,” a CBI officer said.
It is unclear why the CBI is not pursuing Interpol to issue a red notice, which is a request to locate and arrest a person for prosecution. Sources said Goa police had also approached the external affairs ministry seeking cancellation of the Luthra brothers’ passports.
The police said the Delhi-based businessmen boarded an IndiGo flight to Phuket in Thailand at 5.30am on Sunday, hours after the blaze and before the Goa police reached their north Delhi home.
The fire at Birch by Romeo Lane broke out around 11.45pm on Saturday, gutting the 300sqmt property. Twenty of the 25 victims were staff members while the five others were tourists, including four from a Delhi family. The brothers have been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Late Tuesday night, the Goa police detained another owner, Ajay Gupta, in New Delhi. A probe had revealed there were more owners of the nightclub besides the Luthra brothers.
“We have detained Ajay Gupta, one of the owners of the nightclub. This is the sixth person to be held in connection with the case,” a Goa police spokesperson said.
The police had issued a lookout circular against Gupta, and all airports and immigration officials were put on alert. The officer said the three owners of the nightclub were in Delhi at the time of the fire.
The Goa police have so far arrested the club’s chief general manager Rajiv Modak, gate manager Priyanshu Thakur, bar manager Rajveer Singhania, general manager Vivek Singh and operations head from Delhi, Bharat Singh.
More ‘owners’
The Goa police also issued a lookout circular against another owner, Surinder Kumar Khosla, a senior officer said on Tuesday.
The circular was issued against Khosla, a British citizen, hours after the Luthra brothers fled to Thailand.
Addressing a media conference at Anjuna police station in north Goa, deputy inspector-general of police Varsha Sharma said a circular had been issued against Khosla. “Khosla is a British citizen,” he said.
Sharma said two officers of the Goa government — the then director of panchayat Siddhi Halarnkar and then Goa State Pollution Control Board member secretary Shamila Monteiro, had been asked to join the investigation.
Fire safety panel
The Goa government has constituted a high-level committee to frame SOPs for carrying out a comprehensive safety audit and for granting various licences to nightclubs, bars, restaurants and tourist establishments.
The five-member panel will assess the mandatory licences, approvals and safety norms, including fire NOCs, structural stability certificates, electrical safety and other such requirements for the functioning of the establishments. It will have to submit a report in a month.
Additional reporting by PTI