Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra deported from Thailand in Goa fire case

Days after a devastating fireplace at an upscale nightclub in India’s Goa state killed 25 people, the highlight stays on the 2 brothers who co-owned the place.

On Tuesday, Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra had been deported to India from Thailand, the place they fled hours after the incident on 7 December.

A 3rd companion within the nightclub, Ajay Gupta, was detained in Delhi final week.

Till a couple of weeks in the past, the brothers who grew up in Delhi, weren’t identified past India’s hospitality and nightlife circuit.

Those that knew them describe a life rooted in strange beginnings: a paralysed father who as soon as ran a flourishing enterprise, a spiritual mom cherished by her group, and two sons who represented a brand new era of Indian restaurateurs – bold, social-media savvy and desirous to scale their model throughout cities.

“They had been Delhi boys within the broadest sense,” a city-based musician who is aware of the brothers advised the BBC on the situation of anonymity, referring to the traits of brashness and risk-taking usually related to the Indian capital’s social and enterprise tradition. “Nicely-networked and impressive, they used the town and their connections to construct visibility.”

However hours after the lethal fireplace, the brothers boarded a aircraft to Phuket and left the nation, sparking outrage and intense scrutiny. Police launched an investigation and Interpol issued notices towards them. In a single day, the budding entrepreneurs had become worldwide fugitives.

As soon as again, the brothers will likely be investigated on prices of culpable murder amongst different allegations. They deny any wrongdoing and say they “by no means meant to evade” the regulation, alleging that they had been being “erroneously portrayed” as villains in a wider tragedy.

How did they get right here?

Born right into a middle-class household in northern Delhi, the brothers grew up removed from the dizzying glamour related to the venues they might finally personal.

To their neighbours, they had been merely Saurabh and Gaurav – the well mannered sons of a pleasant couple. “They had been deeply non secular, particularly the mom,” a neighbour told the Times of India newspaper, with one other resident including that the household’s conduct was “was all the time superb”.

Their father, largely bedridden after a paralytic assault, formed the rhythm of the home – after his sickness, the household opened a boutique clothes retailer within the neighbourhood to revive their incomes, whereas the brothers targeted on their training.

Saurabh studied engineering from a college in Gujarat state. On the membership’s official web site, he’s described as a “gold medalist engineer become a promising and fastest-growing restaurateur”. Compared, Gaurav’s private life is much less documented, however stories recommend he additionally had a level in engineering.

Their entrepreneurial journey started with a restaurant in 2016 in Hudson Lane – a vibrant college students’ hub close to the Delhi college – which swiftly grew to become a favorite among the many younger crowds. Buoyed by its success, the brothers launched one other informal diner, referred to as Dramebaaz, in the identical neighbourhood shortly after.

However the true breakthrough got here a couple of years later with Romeo Lane, an upscale nightclub. The venue leaned on a recognisable aesthetic of balancing carefree indulgence with deliberate spectacle: modern finishings, handcrafted cocktails, loud Bollywood music, and themed occasions.

Its success impressed growth and very quickly, dozens of shops sprang up throughout the nation, together with in smaller cities akin to Noida, Meerut, Lucknow and Dehradun. Additionally they opened a property in Dubai final yr.

“These had been loud, flamboyant areas with stomach dance performances and many Bollywood nights,” the Delhi-based musician mentioned.

“In comparison with different locations, Romeo Lane was additionally much more reasonably priced, giving the broader plenty, particularly the city youth, their first glimpse of nightlife,” he added.

Opened in 2024, Birch by Romeo Lane – the positioning of the fireplace in Goa – was meant to be an extension of this method however on a grander scale, a luxuriant tropical island that provided an escape from the din of metropolis life.

“It was a sprawling venue with huge open areas, ponds and recent air. {That a} fireplace broke out at such a venue is past perception,” a resident from Bengaluru metropolis, who visited the place final yr, advised the BBC.

Because the brothers’ enterprise grew, Saurabh took on a extra public-facing position, driving technique because the chairman.

His Instagram account, which remains to be public, reads like a rigorously curated digital diary of a hospitality impresario: You see footage of ribbon-cutting ceremonies at new openings, group snaps with cooks standing beneath freshly lit signage and the occasional picture with a celeb, charting his rise as a profitable entrepreneur for his 14,000 followers.

Two years in the past, he was listed in Financial Occasions newspaper’s “40 underneath 40” record. Final month, he was additionally featured on Forbes India – the corporate account for Romeo Lane shared the article on Instagram, which described him as a pacesetter targeted on constructing a “legacy”.

His brother Gaurav, however, has a quieter presence on-line. His Instagram account is sparse, strictly dedicated to posts concerning the venues.

Experiences say he was extra concerned within the day-to-day operations, taking care of their funds and administration. “However the model they projected was unified: the Luthra brothers,” the musician mentioned.

Their speedy rise, nonetheless, was not with out controversy, particularly in Goa the place their venues confronted complaints about permits and security compliances.

In 2024, police launched an investigation towards the property for allegedly enjoying loud music, which was approach above the permissible limits, after a couple of residents filed a grievance. The case, of which the BBC has seen a duplicate, is ongoing.

Earlier than that in 2023, a resident filed a grievance with native authorities towards the venue, alleging that it was illegally constructed in an ecologically delicate zone.

The BBC has a duplicate of the grievance, which additionally alleged that the venue was discharging untreated sewage “instantly into the ecologically delicate Baga river, which in the end connects to the Arabian Sea, inflicting substantial environmental air pollution”. The grievance doesn’t point out the brothers instantly however refers to their native enterprise companion.

Nonetheless, in November, the Goa Coastal Zone Administration Authority closed the case, concluding that the constructions housing the nightclub had been authorized and fell outdoors the legally protected coastal areas.

Then earlier in Might, Goa’s Tourism Division issued orders to demolish elements of Romeo Lane in Vagator – a second property owned by the brothers – for encroaching on public seaside land.

Motion was taken solely this month, when a portion of the construction was demolished underneath orders from the chief minister days after the lethal blaze.

However in contrast to in Delhi, the place they led an outwardly public life, the brothers had been just about unknown in Goa, says Tahir Noronha, a neighborhood architect, who has been on the forefront of protests towards the Romeo Lane properties.

“They had been like ghosts. Even throughout court docket proceedings, they might ship a supervisor to symbolize them, by no means exhibiting up themselves,” he mentioned.

In court docket filings, the brothers have argued that they had been “licensees, not operators” of the venue and had no direct management over the day-to-day security rules of the membership. The BBC has reached out to Romeo Lane for remark.

As investigators piece collectively the occasions that led to the fireplace, the story of the brothers continues to unfold – on TV, newspapers and cell apps.

The Luthra brothers have turn out to be family names, however not for the explanations that they had hoped.