PANAJI: The Goa Police on Thursday filed a charge sheet, naming 13 accused, including co-owners Gaurav Luthra and Saurabh Luthra, in connection with the fire at Birch nightclub next to Romeo Lane that claimed 25 lives in December last year.
The police presented the 4,150-page indictment, which included 305 witnesses, before the Magistrate in Mapusa.
25 people were killed, including four from a Delhi family, and several others were injured when a devastating fire swept through Birch Bay Romeo Lane nightclub, a popular party venue in Arpora village in north Goa, on the night of December 6, 2025. The Luthra brothers, co-owners of the nightclub, fled to Phuket in Thailand hours after the incident and were deported from that country on December 17.
Besides the Luthra brothers, Ajay Gupta, their partner in M/sbeing GS Hospitality Goa Arpora LLP, which owns Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub, has also been named in the chargesheet. All three are currently in judicial custody. The charge sheet also named nightclub employees Rajeev Modak (general manager of the company), Vivek Singh (general manager) and Bijay Kumar Singh (operations manager) as accused. They are also in judicial custody.
Roshan Redkar, who was then sarpanch of Arpora Nagoa Panchayat, and Raghuveer Bagkar, then panchayat secretary, both currently in judicial custody, and Priyanshu Thakur (nightclub gate manager) and Rajveer Singhania (bar manager), who are out on bail, have also been named in the charge sheet. The Anjuna police also named Mayur Kolwalkar and Mohammad Afif Abdul Sab Patiri, officials of the event management company that organized a show at the club on the day of the incident, in the chargesheet.
British national Surinder Kumar Khosla, who is currently on the run, has also been named as an accused. Police said a blue corner notice has been issued against him.
The police have charged the accused under Sections 105 (culpable homicide), 125 (endangering human life) and 287 (negligent handling of fires and combustible substances endangering human life) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Subsequently, Sections 336 (forgery), 338 (using a forged document as genuine), 340(2) and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy), 238 (destruction of evidence), 241 (destruction of documents) and 3(7) (acts of omission) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) were added to the case.
