Delhi-based restaurateurs Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra, who had fled to Phuket just hours after a fire killed 25 people at their Goa nightclub on Sunday, were detained by Thailand police early on Thursday and could be deported soon, CBI sources said.

While India and Thailand have a 10-year-old treaty on extradition — a process where multi-layered judicial procedures can impose delays — efforts are on to secure a deportation, which requires just an executive decision. India has already suspended the Luthra brothers’ passports, sources said.

Later in the day, a Delhi court dismissed a plea for anticipatory bail from the brothers, who face charges including that of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The Thailand police have released photos showing the brothers in custody — hands tied, clutching their passports, and standing beside Thai police officers.

“The Thai police detained them from their hotel room. A Goa police team has reached Thailand and the Luthras will be handed over to them. They will be deported soon and brought to Goa to face trial,” a CBI official said.

According to the Goa police, the Luthra brothers had booked their tickets within 90 minutes of the post-midnight fire that broke out in the early hours of Sunday and killed 20 staff and 5 guests.

They are believed to have caught an IndiGo flight for Phuket from New Delhi at 5.30am on Sunday — riding a stroke of good fortune considering the meltdown the airline’s schedules were then undergoing across the country with hundreds of cancellations and delays.

On Wednesday, the brothers sought four weeks’ anticipatory bail from a Delhi court through their lawyers, claiming they had left India on a business trip and denying they had tried to evade theinvestigation.

Investigators have alleged that the Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub, owned by the brothers, lacked not just fire safeguards but even a no-objection certificate from the fire department, a liquor permission from the excise department, and a building clearance.

However, government officials had allegedly stalled the local panchayat’s demolition order against the structure.

Following a request from the Goa police on Monday, the CBI had requested global police organisation Interpol to issue a “blue notice” against the brothers.

The blue notice, meant to trace the whereabouts of people connected to criminal investigations, was issued on Tuesday night.

During Thursday’s hearing of their anticipatory bail pleas, Goa police told the Delhi court that the brothers had shown no cooperation during the probe and misled the authorities about when they had left India.

“There is no cooperation on the part of Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra, which disentitled them for extraordinary protection by this court,” the police told the court.

The police added: “They (the Luthras) have no business in Thailand. They left the country on December 7, though they said they had left on the night of December 6. They misled the court, misled the authorities and left the country.”

About 100 people, mostly tourists, were partying during a “musical night” at theclub when the fire broke out, apparently from the firecrackers being burst on thedance floor.

According to the Goa police’s FIR, the nightclub lacked basic fire safety measures -- extinguishers, alarms, suppression gear or a fire audit on record – and had no emergency exits on the deck or the ground floor.