The owners of an Indian nightclub fled to Phuket hours after a fire ripped through a nightclub in the western state of Goa, killing 25, authorities in India say.
Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra left for Phuket on flights from Goa on Sunday, Indian media outlets reported, quoting the PTI news agency, adding that the flight the brothers were believed to have taken was IndiGo flight 6E1073.
Indian police said officers travelled to New Delhi to carry out a raid at the brothers’ home but discovered the men had left the country.
They are now seeking assistance from Interpol to arrest the duo, they said.
Flight 6E1073 serves New Delhi and Phuket. It left New Delhi at 5.40am and landed on the Thai tourist island at 11.06am on Sunday, according to the flight-tracking site tracker Flightradar24.
The fire at Birch by Romeo Lane in northern Goa killed 25 people.
Police were alerted to the blaze at the nightclub at 12.04am local time on Sunday, Goa’s police chief told the ANI news agency.
Firefighters worked through the night to bring the blaze under control, and all the bodies have been recovered, ANI reported.
The blaze was likely triggered by “electrical firecrackers”, officials said, with most people dying due to suffocation in the basement and kitchen area after wooden parts of the club caught fire.
At least 14 of the dead were club employees, police told ANI.
On Monday, Saurabh Luthra expressed “profound grief” over the tragedy and promised “every possible form” of assistance to the families of the victims.
“The management expresses profound grief and is deeply shaken by the tragic loss of lives resulting from the unfortunate incident,” he said in a post on social media without revealing his whereabouts.
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that four people had been arrested, and ordered checks on other nightclubs in the former Portuguese colony.
“I have ordered a magisterial inquiry into the entire incident to identify the cause and fix responsibility” for the fire in the village of Arpora, he posted on X.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his office would offer compensation of up to 200,000 rupees (71,000 baht) each to the families of the deceased and 50,000 rupees to the injured.
Goa, a small coastal state, is a popular tourist destination, especially among foreigners, offering beaches and hilly landscapes. About 5.5 million tourists, including 271,000 from abroad, visited Goa in the first half of the year, according to government data.