Goa Night Club: Victims’ kin demand fast track trial; ‘When the fire broke out, the staff threw water from the wine glass’

Staff at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub in Goa tried to control a Huge fire on the night of 6th December Throwing water from liquor glasses and bottles in the absence of fire extinguishers, recalled Bhavna Joshi, who lost four of her family members in the tragedy.

Struggling with emotional trauma and anger over the alleged apathy of the nightclub management, relatives of some of the 25 victims have demanded that the investigation and trial be expedited.

“I have seen my family members dying of suffocation in the fire. What was their fault? You cannot imagine what it is like to take out the bodies of four of your family members from the fire,” Joshi told reporters outside the Mapusa court on Tuesday.

She lost her husband and three sisters in a fire, believed to have been caused by fireworks during a demonstration. Officials had said that narrow evacuation routes increased the death toll that fateful night.

Joshi, a resident of New Delhi, said, “The incident happened just 15 minutes after we entered the nightclub. My husband was busy calming people down when the fire broke out. I was saved because people running outside the nightclub pushed me. I tried to go back to look for my family, but they stopped me.”

He alleged that the nightclub management did nothing to extinguish the fire.

“There were no extinguishers there. They were throwing water to douse the fire with the help of wine glasses and later bottles,” he said.

We come from a middle class background. We had saved for this Goa trip. This tragedy left us shattered. Joshi said, we are in crisis and facing financial problems.

A family member accompanying Joshi said he visited Goa twice this month to follow up on the investigation.

He said that a lawyer, who is his well-wisher, has voluntarily offered to fight the case without charging any fee.

Vikas Munda, originally from Jharkhand, lost his brother in the fire.

“We want justice for our family members,” he told reporters outside the court. The accused should not be spared.

Goa Police has so far arrested eight people, including three owners of the nightclub, while another owner, Surinder Khosla, is yet to be arrested.

The Mapusa court on December 26 extended the police custody of owner-brothers Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra.

The brothers and sisters had fled to Thailand just hours after the tragedy occurred in Arpora village. He was deported to India on 17 December.